


Harry Potter and the Nightmare Newborn

by shabbacabba



Category: Bloodborne (Video Game), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Blood and Gore, F/M, Harry Potter Needs a Hug, Hermione Granger is a Good Friend, Horror, Madness, Not Canon Compliant - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, POV Multiple, Pensieves (Harry Potter), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:55:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 7
Words: 67,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28026639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shabbacabba/pseuds/shabbacabba
Summary: The worst of nightmares leave us shaking and cold in our beds. Harry wishes he could be so lucky.
Relationships: Albus Dumbledore & Harry Potter, Harry Potter/The Hunter (Bloodborne), Hermione Granger/Harry Potter
Comments: 9
Kudos: 43





	1. An Awakening?

The sun rose over Hogwarts.

The multitude of massive bells in the clock tower began to toll the hour.

Headmaster Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore sat in his throne at the center of the head table and wondered if Harry would show up to breakfast this morning. After the disaster that was the Tri-Wizard champion selection the previous night, he wouldn't be surprised if young Harry decided to avoid his peers for a short time. The lad was under quite a lot of scrutiny from them at the moment after all.

The headmaster picked at his breakfast in contemplation as Hermione Granger sat at the Gryffindor table, joining the other early risers. That she came alone rather than wait for her friends did not bode well in Albus' mind. There must have been some argument among them, likely regarding whether Harry had entered himself in the tournament or not if he had his guess.

Just how his name had managed to come out of the Goblet was no mystery. A knowledgeable enough wizard would have had no issue convincing the cup that there were, in fact, _four_ schools competing instead of the actual three. From there it is a simple matter to enter young Harry as the only competitor from said nameless school, thereby forcing his selection as champion.

Or, at least that's how Albus would have done it. In truth, the _how_ matters little. The why is also fairly simple to guess: someone wants young Harry to either die or suffer as a result of the tournament. The real meat of the problem is the _who_.

For this, Albus has no answer: merely guesswork and wild hypothesis that would do him no good to speak of to anyone.

The great bells of the clock tower sound their last, and as they fade away they are replaced with the typical sounds of the great hall in the early morning: the scratching of silverware on plates, quiet conversation among the early risers of the castle with the occasional joyous laugh interspersed therein, and equally quiet but much more professional conversation held between the staff members that chose to take their breakfast here instead of in their private quarters.

"Albus?" He turned to look at his Deputy, a curious twinkle in his eye, as she continued. "What do you make of the situation with Mr. Potter? It all seems very suspect to me."

The headmaster hummed thoughtfully for a moment before responding. "Suspect indeed, Minerva. I have no doubt that young Harry did not enter himself, and that whoever did, did so with less than benevolent intentions. It is the who that mystifies me at the moment."

It was with a thoughtful expression and pursed lips that Minerva responded, "Are you so sure that-" From behind Albus' throne came a light and airy chime. Surprised by the sudden sound, she turned and narrowed her eyes at something Albus could not see behind him. "Now where did that come from?" She said to herself.

Curiosity piqued, Albus rose and stepped around his throne to get a look at whatever had gotten his deputy's attention. There, a few feet behind, and slightly off center from his seat was a cast iron lamp held aloft, perhaps three feet from the ground, on a crooked pole. The lamp gave off a faint blue light.

"Curious," Albus said. "Where _indeed_ did this lamp come from?" As he spoke he drew his wand, prepared to cast the first of many detection spells on it, when the bells that he had not noticed tied to the bottom of the lamp, gave a sudden jerk, chiming just as they had a moment ago.

"Albus, did you do that?" Minerva asked hesitantly, glancing back and forth between the strange blue lamp in front of them and Albus' still raised wand.

The headmaster shook his head, opening his mouth to reply before clacking it shut in shock when he noticed the floor around the lamp.

Or rather, what the floor was _doing_ that it just should _not_ be doing. For several feet around the base of the lamp, the solid stone floor of the great hall rippled like the water of a lake around a sapling. Dumbfounded by the sight, neither the Headmaster nor his deputy reacted for a moment, but then Albus' wand was moving. Swishing, flicking, and jabbing his way through every detection spell he knew, all of which returned answers that he could make neither heads nor tails of.

Enchantment detection charms told him that, yes, the lamp was enchanted. Enchantment identification charms told him that there was no such enchantment on the lamp. Spells meant to identify dangerous or dark magic returned seemingly random answers from one casting to the next. Baffled, but somewhat excited by the thrill of discovery, Albus redoubled his efforts to identify the lamp and whatever effects it might be having on the castle around it.

But then, before he could finish his battery of investigative magic, something began to rise out of the rippling floor around the lamp. Albus' litany of spells stopped short as his wand arm sagged in utter disbelief at what he was seeing.

It made no sound as it rose, though it soon became clear that it was actually a he. A he that wore a wide brimmed leather hat, and attire that vaguely reminded Albus of the style of his youth; a long dark overcoat with a tattered cape that fell out of style many years before, the interior of the coat lined with red silk, all worn on top of a rather nice, if rumpled and bloodstained, set of a vest, shirt, and pants. The man rose up from the floor in a kneeling position, facing towards the lamp, head bowed as if in prayer, but with his arms hung limply by his sides.

When the man had risen fully, Albus expected the floor to stop rippling so that he would be able to stand on it, and yet the floor continued to ripple around the base of the lamp. The ripples even reacted to the mysterious man's knees where he touched the ground!

All of this was taken in by Albus' keen mind before the figure could move to stand. What manner of magic was this? How did this man manage to subvert the Hogwarts wards in such a way that the headmaster did not notice the intrusion earlier? But, yet again, Albus found himself mostly concerned with the _who_ in this situation. After all, who would have the knowledge and power necessary to accomplish this? This was magic the headmaster had never seen before.

The man stayed kneeling for only moment before rising sinuously to his feet, tilting his head to one side and then the other with an audible crack. The headmaster took note that, while only average in height, the man seemed to be fairly well built.

"Good morning sir," the headmaster started, the man whirling around to face him, his coattails flapping out behind him from the speed of his turn, wide green eyes locking onto his own from behind round glasses. The headmaster stopped short. He recognized those eyes, dare he say that anyone in the magical world would recognize eyes like those! Lily's eyes. Despite the lower half of the man's face being wrapped in some sort of leather scarf, Albus was sure he knew who this was.

"Harry?" the headmaster asked cautiously. "Is that you my boy?" Beside him, Minerva's expression of undiluted shock (which hadn't changed since the man began rising from the floor) turned into a suspicious glare.

"Headmaster," came the slightly muffled voice of Harry Potter from the now identified strange man. "It's over." He said quietly, and then again, the words taking on an almost manic quality as young Harry chuckled darkly. "It's over! The nightmare is finally over! I'm home!"

"What nightmare Harry? Where did you go?" The headmaster asked calmly while motioning for Minerva to hold her peace for the moment. Nothing about this felt right to him.

But Harry shook his head almost frantically; his eyes wide and panic beginning to creep into his voice. "You don't want to know professor! The things I've seen can't be unseen, can't be unlearned, and I'll not put that burden on anyone else if I can help it, no no nononono!"

"Harry, my boy," Albus reached out a hand to comfort the lad, but he recoiled almost violently, leaping back faster than Albus would've expected him capable of to maintain the distance. The headmaster let his arm drop and naked concern leak into his voice. "Harry?"

Harry closed his eyes for a long moment, taking a deep breath, seemingly recentering himself, before opening them at the same time as he pulled down his face covering. He was pale as a ghost and looked like he hadn't shaved in several days.

"S-sorry professor. I, well I've had a rough night." Then his eyes flicked over the headmasters shoulder and widened terribly. With a glance, Albus confirmed his suspicions when he saw that everyone in the great hall was staring at them. Harry would most assuredly not appreciate this kind of attention, especially on the back of what had happened last night with the Goblet and … whatever it is that happened between then and now.

"Harry, why don't we take this discussion to my office?" Harry looked at him and nodded almost frantically. "Then follow me, my boy." The headmaster turned and made his way around the head table, Harry and Minerva hot on his heels, one after the other.

Hermione sat at the end of the Gryffindor table nearest the doors, her Ancient Runes textbook open on her left with a bowl of porridge on her right that she absently ate as she read.

She was trying to distract herself from the _utter disaster_ that had happened the night before. Not Ron being a prat, that wasn't anywhere near as important as the fact that _someone was likely trying to kill Harry_. Again. She couldn't help but sigh at the thought. He really was cursed with the worst of luck, wasn't he? Well, hopefully the Ministry would pull through on all the propaganda they put in that rag of theirs and actually make this tournament safe for once.

She sighed again and shook her head. Like that was ever going to happen! If there was one thing she'd learned the previous year it was that the Ministry was grossly incompetent at the very least. Even ignoring the whole Sirius Black debacle, they still authorized a young girl to use a time turner just so she could take more classes.

In retrospect, Hermione could acknowledge that bending the very fabric of space and time just so she could take classes she didn't even need was rather … well, a bit much. Not that she would _ever_ admit such a thing to either of her friends. They would never let her live it down if she did! Ron especially would be just awful about the whole thing, though she could see Harry just poking fun at her about it every once in a while …

Maybe she _would_ tell Harry … Once she got Ron to get his head out of his arse and realize that there was no way Harry would both enter this tournament illegally _and_ not tell them about it before hand. Honestly! There's not an ounce of logic or sense to what Ron is thinking right now. If she can just get him to see sense for just a moment-

A sudden shout from the staff table jerked Hermione out of her thoughts, as well as the gaze of the girl herself and everyone else in the hall to the staff table. She frowned in confusion at what she saw. The headmaster and Professor McGonagall were talking to a rather strangely dressed wizard behind the head table, and if Hermione wasn't mistaken they were trying to comfort him.

How odd.

Curiosity was something that Hermione had in spades, and once stoked it didn't stop burning until it had consumed everything it sought after. So she watched the unfolding drama at the staff table with rapt attention, all the while mindlessly eating more of her now cold porridge.

Just as she was taking a bite, the odd man lowered his scarf and she nearly choked on her spoon she swallowed so hard.

"Harry!?" She managed to gasp out once she got the bite of porridge down and the spoon back up. With wide eyes she watched as the headmaster gestured, and the three made their way around the staff table and towards the doors to the great hall.

What was going on?!

She couldn't read the headmasters expression, Professor McGonagall seemed confused if one could look passed her stern exterior, and Harry …

Hermione narrowed her eyes at him. He was deathly pale, but there was something in his eyes. Relief, she thought. He looked relieved, too relieved actually. He looked like a great weight had been lifted from him, or like some great trial had been passed. He looked like he did in the hospital wing at the end of first year, right after nearly _dying_ to save the Philosophers Stone.

Something was wrong. Something was _very_ wrong.

Hermione gathered her books as quickly as she could before racing to intercept her friend before he could leave the hall.

"Harry! What's going on?" She called out when she had rounded the end of the table nearest the door.

Harry lurched to a stop, his head whipping towards her so fast she was afraid he might have broken something. For the barest of moments Hermione was afraid that Harry was upset with her, but then his expression lit up like a child's on Christmas morning.

"Miss Granger," Professor McGonagall said. "Now is not the time to-" She was cut off as Harry covered the distance between himself and Hermione in a dash. The next thing Hermione knew she was being crushed to Harry's chest in what had to be the first hug that he had ever initiated between them. If _Harry_ is initiating then something truly _awful_ must have happened! Not knowing what else to do, she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and held him just as tightly as he did her.

"Hermione," the word was whispered, reverently, almost like a prayer, into her hair as she absently noted that Harry seemed taller now. How had she not noticed that before? They'd been at school for two months now!

"Harry, what's wrong?" She whispered back to him. Then she took a breath, and was assaulted with an absolutely _revolting_ stench. She couldn't quite place the smell, but as she looked at what little of him she could see with her face pressed into his collarbone she noticed the sheer _volume_ of bloodstains on him. He was almost completely covered in them! Not one of them looked fresh, and he certainly felt dry, but that might still explain the smell. She shuddered at the thought.

"Harry! You're covered in bloodstains and you _reek_! What happened?! Are you hurt? Where did you get these clothes? Where did all this blood _come from?_ " She got all this out in one rushed breath, and felt more than heard Harry's responding chuckle.

"Hermione, I…" Harry pulled back, holding Hermione at arms length, his eyes boring into hers, almost glowing in their intensity, like he was looking for something within her. She stared right back, her concern showing plainly in her expression, and an argument ready on the tip of her tongue should he try and _not_ explain this all to her. After a moment, Harry found whatever it was he was looking for, and his expression fell.

"You won't drop this." He stated in the most exhausted voice Hermione had ever heard from him before. Hermione shook her head even though she knew it wasn't a question. With a sigh, Harry said "Fine. C'mon then, we're going to the Headmasters Office."

His hands dropped from her shoulders as he turned to make his way out of the great hall, Hermione rushing to keep pace at his side. Professor Dumbledore gave her a fleeting smile before preceding them out, while Professor McGonagall brought up the rear.

Hermione kept glancing at her friend the whole way to the Headmaster's office, and each time she found him staring into the middle distance, lost in thought, and so she resolved to let the silence stretch to give him time to gather his thoughts.

In the Headmaster's office, Professor Dumbledore took his seat behind his desk while Professor McGonagall conjured a rather Spartan seat for herself that looked far less comfortable than the overly squishy ones the Headmaster was fond of conjuring for his guests.

Professor Dumbledore gestured to the two available seats before his desk. "Please, have a seat." Harry collapsed into the middle seat while Hermione took the one to his left. "You look tired, my boy, care for a lemon drop?" Harry stared silently at the bowl of hard candies for an uncomfortably long moment, before reaching out a gloved hand, which, Hermione noted, was _also_ spotted with blood stains, to take one of the candies and pop it in his mouth.

With a great crunch that made Hermione wince he immediately bit down into the lemon drop, chewed it up, and swallowed it.

"Harry?" She asked in a small, concerned voice. He looked to her pensively from under the brim of his bloodied hat. "I can tell that something is wrong Harry. What is it? What happened?" He winced at that and looked away, eyes cast down to the floor. In shame, or fear, or embarrassment, Hermione couldn't quite tell, but he made no move to answer her question one way or the other.

"Does this have anything to do with your name coming out of the Goblet of Fire last night?" She asked, hoping to at least get an _idea_ of what was going on. To her complete surprise, and the shock of the other two present, Harry started laughing uproariously at that. Great, belly shaking laughter exploded out of him for several moments.

Hermione narrowed her eyes at him. "Really Harry! I don't think this is a laughing matter! You're covered in blood and I don't-" Harry's laughter suddenly shifted into outright sobbing as he hunched over into himself, cradling his face in his hands.

Eyes round with shock and self recrimination, how could she have just snapped at her friend like that when he's obviously been through _some_ sort of ordeal!? Hermione leapt from her chair to wrap Harry in her arms, tossing his hat aside before cradling his head against her chest, babbling apologies all the way.

"Oh, Harry! I'm so sorry! I shouldn't have snapped at you like that, it wasn't right when you've so obviously been through _some-_ " Harry's arms snapped around her with such suddenness and strength that it knocked the rest of her breath from her before she could finish. But, his own voice replaced hers, gasping through his sobs.

"A Nightmare! It, it- full of blood and beasts, that cursed city on the night of the Hunt! 'A hunter must hunt!' And so I did and- heavens above, the blood, I can still hear it calling to me, can still taste it, can still-" He descended deeper into tears, while Hermione shushed and whispered to him that everything was alright, her hand running through his greasy, knotted hair, idly noting that he desperately needed a shower.

It could wait until after he was done hurting. But, she could make no sense of what he was saying. Harry had had nightmares in the past, certainly, but none like what he was describing, and a bloody _nightmare_ wouldn't explain the clothes, or the blood that she was only just now noticing was also _dried into his hair_! He must have been soaked in blood at some point! Dear God what happened?

She looked to her professors, but neither of them seemed to have any better idea of what he was talking about than she did. Wonderful. On their own again.

Harry's crying cut off mid sob, and when Hermione looked back to him she found his face not even an inch away from her own, his bloodshot eyes staring unerringly into her own while a manic smile that showed _far_ too many teeth stretched his lips.

"But _she_ was there and _she_ reminded me so much of _you_ ," His voice was a barely there whisper, reverently stroking every word he spoke, that contrasted harshly with the mania in his eyes, and it set Hermione's blood racing through her veins and her heart pounding in her chest. "So curious, so strong, always twelve step ahead of me." He paused, a hand coming up to cup Hermione's cheek, a gloved thumb idly stroking circles on her skin as emerald eyes darted to her lips and back. "So beautiful it hurts."

She flushed crimson even as her mouth ran away before her brain had a chance to catch up.

"Harry, I-I what? Who are you talking about?"

" _You._ " His thumb brushed over her lower lip and she drew in a quick breath at the sensation. " _Her._ " His eyes locked onto her lips and refused to budge this time. " _She_ is gone, but I have no intention of losing _you_ too." Hermione's confusion only had a chance to blossom for a moment before being violently smothered as Harry's hand tangled in her hair and his lips descended on her own.

Her eyes fluttered closed of their own accord.

Her hands clenched in his bloodied hair, pulling him closer, harder against her.

Distantly, she was aware of McGonagall's shocked gasping of their names, but it didn't really register.

He devoured her, kissing her with such wild abandon that even Hermione's highly ordered and prioritized mind completely blanked out and she lost herself in the sensation of his lips against her own. He nipped her lip, making her gasp, and then his tongue was there, dancing with her own, and the iron tang of blood was on her tongue, and-

The two were flung apart, Harry's upper body slamming into the back of the chair he sat in while Hermione fell to the floor in front of him.

"Really, Mr. Potter! That is hardly the behavior I would expect from you!" Professor McGonagall's irate voice sounded from where the elderly witch sat primly, her wand in her hand and a disapproving expression on her face.

The Headmaster merely chuckled from behind his desk.

Hermione's face flamed, eyes downcast, and she opened her mouth to apologize when Harry growled, actually _growled_ at Professor McGonagall! She shot a look up at him and gasped. He was glaring balefully at the professor, teeth that had no right being as sharp as they looked bared in a very real snarl.

"Mr. Potter?" Professor McGonagall said warily. Harry narrowed his eyes at her and snarled again, making her flinch and raise her wand to him.

"Harry?" Hermione asked gently. He flicked his eyes to her and back to the professor so quick she almost missed it. "Harry." She said again, taking a sterner tone of voice. He looked longer that time, but his growl didn't let up, and he looked ready to pounce at the professor any second. "Harry!" She said forcefully, and this time he turned his whole head back to her, letting the snarl slip from his face though his eyes seemed oddly unfocused.

"Harry, you need to calm down." He blinked, focusing on her after a moment as she kept speaking. "You seemed about ready to attack a professor Harry. Now, if it was Professor Snape than I'd be able to understand, but you _like_ Professor McGonagall!"

Harry jerked in his seat, glancing wide-eyed back and forth between Hermione and their professor several times before reaching a shaking hand into a small satchel on the bandolier running across his chest.

"Harry, what are you-" Hermione cut herself off when she saw the dirty vial of milky white potion he pulled from the satchel, unstoppered, and downed without a moment's hesitation. "What did you just take?" She asked instead as she climbed to her feet. "I don't recognize that potion."

"Neither did I, Miss Granger." The Headmaster said behind her. The professor made a sound of agreement.

Harry shivered once, blinked twice, and let out a relieved breath. "S-sorry. Sedative." He ran a hand through his hair while Hermione just raised an eyebrow at him in question. "Was building myself up into a frenzy there, damn near lost it." He looked up at her with an expression Hermione didn't quite know what to make of, like he was grateful but confused at the same time.

"Thanks for snapping me out of it 'Mione. Never heard of such a thing happening before." Hermione breathed a sigh of relief.

"Are you alright now Harry?" She laid a hand on his shoulder, squeezing comfortingly and without thought. Harry covered her hand with his own, squeezing her back with a shaky smile.

"Wouldn't say I'm alright, but I'm better. Was in a right sort, wasn't I? Sedative really helped." Hermione tilted her head questioningly, but the Headmaster beat her to it.

"What kind of sedative was that, Harry?" Hermione moved to sit back in her chair, and as her hand slid off of Harry he tangled their fingers together so that their hands dangled in the space between their chairs. She shot him a curious look, but he wasn't looking at her and didn't seem to realize what he had done, so she just pursed her lips briefly and went with it.

If it made him feel better then she wasn't going to ask questions. At the moment anyway.

"Harry?" The Headmaster prodded gently after Harry had been silent a moment too long, breaking him out of whatever reverie he had fallen into.

"Oh. Right, the sedative. It's the kind you find in Byrgenwerth. Don't rightly know what it's made of, don't really _want_ to know to be honest with you. Just know that it works." Harry finished with a shrug so typical for him that it made Hermione smile.

"Byrgenwerth?" The Headmaster asked with a curious twinkle in his eye. "I've never heard of such a place."

Harry nodded. "I'm not surprised. Famous as they were, they fell to the wayside when Laurence split off and founded the Healing Church in Yharnam." The Headmaster straightened in his seat with a thoughtful frown.

"Professor?" Hermione questioned, having noticed his reaction. "Does Yharnam sound familiar to you?" Harry glanced at her, squeezing her hand as if to say 'good job' before returning his attention to the Headmaster.

"Yes, yes," Dumbledore said. "I read about that island nation once, long ago. Used to be quite the powerhouse in its day if I remember correctly, right up until the whole island just up and disappeared in the late 1860's."

"Disappeared? How does an entire island disappear?" Hermione asked, bemused.

"Taken by the dream." Harry muttered next to her, her eyes shooting over to look at him questioningly, but he was staring at nothing, lost in thought. The Headmaster, having not heard him, answered Hermione's question.

"No one is quite sure. It was an entirely muggle nation, you see. No magical population to speak of. It was there one day, gone the next. There are plenty of theories, of course, from the whole island being put under the Fidelius, to it being swallowed up by the sea much like Atlantis was, but other than the lack of a Yharnam where once one stood, there is no evidence one way or the other for any of the theories."

"Harry?" Hermione gave his hand a squeeze to get his attention. He "hmm'd" and turned unfocused eyes to her. "What did you just say? Something about Yharnam being 'taken by the _dream?_ '"

Both the professors looked at him curiously at this, and Harry replied in a toneless, far away voice.

"Atonement for the wretches, by the wrath of Mother Kos. Lay the curse of blood upon them, and their children, and their children's children forevermore. A bottomless curse. A bottomless sea. Source of all greatness, of all things that be." And he lapsed again into silence, lost in his own thoughts.

"Harry?" Hermione squeezed his hand again. "Harry?" But he remained silent and unseeing, his hand hanging limply in her own. "Harry, what did that mean?"

"Mr. Potter?" Professor McGonagall reached out a hand to him, perhaps intending to shake him gently to get his attention, but her hand never reached him. Harry's free hand snapped out, catching her wrist in a vice grip. "Mr. Potter!" His head snapped to her, and though Hermione couldn't see his expression from where she was, she did see the professor's face go ashen, though her stern exterior never wavered.

Harry shunted the professor's arm aside and leapt to his feet, ripping his hand free of Hermione's in the process.

"You don't know! You can't know! You don't _want_ to know!" Desperation dripped from his voice while he swung suddenly and randomly round and round on the spot, touching each of them with his gaze but never lingering on one for more than a moment. "The Church and its Choir, Byrgenwerth even! Summoned things beyond our ken! They communed with the Cosmos itself and all of Yharnam _burned_ for it! They brought the scourge of beasts down on themselves in their madness and drowned in blood for all their toils!"

"Harry, my boy, calm yourself." The headmaster said calmly but with a hint of steel, his wand having found its way into his hand at some point. Harry whirled on him, advancing on the desk and slamming his hands down on it. Hermione could only watch in wide eyed shock as Harry continued to rant about things that made no sense, now leaning down to get right in the headmaster's face. They had no _context_ and without that nothing Harry was saying was helping anything.

"Mergo's cries heralded the Nightmare of Mensis. Taken by the Nightmare of blood and beasts the city was _lost!_ " He slammed a fist down on the headmasters desk. " _She_ wanted to make sense of it, but I knew! I _knew_ , professor! Knowledge does not come without cost, and the truest insights bring about only _madness!_ " His shoulders slumped without warning, and the fight seemed to just fall away from him. He stumbled back from the desk and collapsed into his seat before continuing in a small voice.

"I tried to stop her. She wouldn't listen. Stubborn like that, like _you_." Here he shot Hermione a look equal parts exasperated and fond. "The Nightmare took her. I think." He sighed despondently. "By the end nothing she said made any sense. It was almost like she wasn't even talking to _me_ , but someone standing behind me."

"Who are you talking about Harry? Who is this girl from your nightmare?" Hermione asked as gently as she could manage, unable to keep her curiosity bottled up but not wanting to set Harry off again.

Harry looked to her sharply. "It wasn't _my_ Nightmare, 'Mione. They brought it down on themselves! I just got sucked into it." She raised her hands in supplication, whispering a quick apology. Harry sighed and looked to his hands, continuing wistfully. "Evelyn. Her name was Evelyn. A hunter, like me. Taught me how to survive. Showed me how to hunt. I wouldn't have made it out of the Dream without her help. She gave me this," He reached into his coat, "To remember her by." And pulled out an intricately decorated flintlock pistol that had to be as long as his forearm.

"How did you manage to fit that into your coat?" Hermione asked incredulously. "It's far too long!"

He just shrugged at her and said, "Magic," With a sly smile. Hermione rolled her eyes though she couldn't completely suppress her smile. "You should see what else I have hidden in my pockets!" He said with a wry chuckle as he returned the pistol to wherever it is he managed to hide it.

"Harry," The headmaster spoke up. "You say you were sucked into the nightmare. Can you explain what you mean?"

Harry shook his head. "Not one bit professor. I have no better idea of how I got to Yharnam than any of the other's did."

"Others?" Professor McGonagall asked with a furrowed brow.

"The other hunters." Harry said plainly. "Some of them were born in Yharnam, but not all, and the outsiders like me had no idea how they came to that cursed place."

"Just what is a hunter, Harry?" The headmaster asked from behind his steepled fingers.

"A once-kept secret of the Church. They walked among the people and cut out any infection they came across to keep the scourge from spreading. It was the hunters that burned Old Yharnam to the ground based on a lie." Hermione looked aghast at that, while Dumbledore merely frowned in thought.

Harry continued before either could voice a question. "But even that was only the lowest level of a hunter's duty. We were meant to grow beyond that, to reach for higher places and hunt greater prey than the beasts that roamed the streets. The Moon Presence wanted the blood of its kin, it wanted the death of an infant Great One."

Hermione blurted out, "An _infant_!? What kind of person would want to murder an infant?"

"Person?" Harry asked bemusedly, looking at her like she had just sprouted a second head that spoke exclusively in nonsense. "The Moon Presence was no person. It was a, a _thing_ with thoughts and reasons beyond our own. I don't know why it wanted the infant Mergo to die. I only know that if it got what it wanted the Nightmare would end." Hermione felt a sinking sensation in her stomach. He's not about to say what she thinks he is, is he? Harry wouldn't murder an infant, whether it was human or not! It's just not right!

"So Evelyn and I delivered. I was freed from the Dream, but I have no idea what happened to Evelyn."

"Harry!" Hermione's reproving tone caught Harry off guard. "How _could_ you? Murdering an infant! That, that's just _wrong_! Human or not!" But Harry was shaking his head before she could finish, and when she did his voice lashed out angrily.

"You _don't know_ what it was _like_! Nightmare doesn't even _begin_ to describe what we went through! The things I've seen? That I've _done_? I don't have the words to even _try_ to make you understand!"

"Then perhaps you should show us then." The headmaster said, bringing the attention of everyone else in the room towards him.

"What do you mean?" Harry asked warily. In response, the headmaster stood and moved to a nearby cabinet with a slight blue glow emanating from within.

"I mean, my boy," he said as he carried a small stone basin over to his desk and set it down. The basin glowed with runes and was filled with a strange silvery liquid. "That we should use my pensieve so that you can show us what you went through last night." He finished with an encouraging smile even as Harry tensed up in his seat.

Hermione noticed. "Harry, this would really be the easiest way. You said yourself that you don't know how to tell us what happened, and asking questions blindly has gotten us nothing but confused, so please, please just show us what happened in the Nightmare."

His shoulders drooped and he looked at Hermione, defeat written on his face. "You won't like what you see, any of you." He said quietly. Hermione reached out and took his hand in her own, giving him a reassuring smile.

"We have to know if we're going to help you move passed it, Harry." He looked into her eyes for a long moment before nodding once.

"You and the headmaster can see, but Professor McGonagall can't." He glanced at her affronted expression. "She won't be able to handle it, I'm sure."

Her expression turned thunderous. "Now see here Mr. Potter!" Only to be cut off by the calm words of the headmaster.

"Minerva." She turned to him, ready to argue. "These are his memories Minerva, and he has the right to choose who can view them. We must respect our students' privacy, even in matters such as this." She pursed her lips but didn't argue.

"Now, my boy, do you know how to retrieve memories to put in the pensieve?" Harry looked to the pensieve and tilted his head, smiling a confused smile.

"Now what are you little ones doing here?" He said to the pensieve, reaching out to pet the air just above it. Dumbledore's brow furrowed, while Hermione looked worryingly between Harry and the empty air he was stroking affectionately.

"Harry," she started hesitantly. "There's nothing there."

He shot her a surprised look. "You can't see them?" She shook her head, her concern for her friend growing. Harry looked around at the others present. "None of you can?"

"What do you see Harry?" The headmaster asked. Hermione shot him an incredulous look. Here was her friend, _hallucinating_ of all things, and the headmaster was _humoring_ him?

"You will see soon enough, and once you do you will never _not_ see it. Once you know you can never forget, no matter how hard you try." She looked back to her friend and found him staring at her with haunted eyes. "Knowledge is a curse that cannot be cured, and one that is always self-inflicted." Hermione reared back as if she'd been slapped. He continued, whispering now, his words meant only for her. "I know that I can't stop you, just as I couldn't stop Evelyn. Please, _please_ know when to stop."

Hermione could only nod, words having momentarily escaped her. Harry took a deep breath and turned back to the headmaster.

"No, I don't know how. Show me." Professor Dumbledore obliged, lifting his wand to his temple.

"Now, you must focus on the memory you wish to retrieve, bring it to the forefront of your mind, and then it is a simple matter to pull it out." He did so, pulling a silvery whisp from his temple for a moment, before quickly depositing it back into his own head. Harry nodded and rooted around in his coat pockets for a few moments before producing his holly wand and …

Fiddling with it for several long moments.

"Harry? What is it?" Hermione asked, putting a comforting hand on his shoulder.

He sighed. "I don't know where to start, or even …" and he trailed off into silence.

"The beginning is usually a good place, my boy." The headmaster chimed in.

"Right, yeah, the beginning." Harry muttered before reaching up and almost yanking a memory out of his head and tossing it into the pensieve. "That, well that might explain a bit. I think. It was the first time Evelyn and I had to face a hunter drunk with blood."

Hermione and the headmaster exchanged a look at that, and mutually decided to save their questions for afterwards.

"Harry," The headmaster said, "Will you be joining us?"

Harry looked stricken for a moment before his expression steeled, and he nodded firmly.

The headmaster nodded back. "Very well then. Simply reach out a finger and dip it in the liquid of the memory. Shall we?" With that, the three did as the headmaster told them and were taken into Harry's memory.

They were deposited onto a cobblestone street, a short wrought iron fence on one side before a great chasm. On the far side of the chasm they could see the skyline of a great Victorian city, and on the side opposite the chasm the street was lined with brick tenement housing. The horizon glowed with the reds and oranges of an imminent sunset. The city was eerily quiet, the only thing that could be heard being the distant sound of shouts and the faint echoing howls of some unseen creature.

And all around them was chaos. Bodies lined the street behind them, one of which Hermione noticed was the same size as Hagrid, but all of the rest were proportioned wrong: arms and legs too long for their torsos, their pants and sleeves having ridden up to reveal furry bodies underneath. Their faces retained little of their human appearance, caught somewhere between wolf and man.

Was this what Harry had meant when he mentioned a beastly scourge? Was that what killed these people?

"You! Are not wanted 'ere!" The shout came from up ahead, where three of the Beast men were fighting two normal sized figures. One was obviously female, wearing a long, dark leather coat that reached her ankles and wrapped almost completely around her legs, with a slit in front of one leg for mobility's sake, Hermione supposed. She wore no hat, and her long blonde hair was held back in a loose tail at the top of her head.

The Beast man that had shouted at her dove forward, a meat cleaver held aloft, awkwardly swiping this way and that at her, but the woman calmly and swiftly ducked and dodged around every swipe, sometimes merely leaning slightly to one side or the other and letting the blade come within a hair's breadth of her, until the Beast man tired and ceased his onslaught.

The moment the attacks stopped she was on the offensive, raising what looked like a simple cane and elegantly driving it across the Beast man once, twice, three times, and a fourth right across his malformed jaw, sending his head spinning with a sharp crack and a spurt of blood that the woman seemed to step into rather than out of the way of. The Beast man's body collapsed at her feet and didn't as much as twitch again.

Meanwhile, a second Beast man, armed with a pitchfork, had charged at the male figure with an animalistic cry of rage. The man, which Hermione knew had to be Harry, although he was dressed in a much less tattered grey leather coat with a tricorn hat in the memory, quickly sidestepped, bringing a massive saw toothed cleaver to bear in the same motion, lashing out across the Beast man's chest and sending a shower of blood all over himself and the street.

His opponent staggered, and Memory Harry pressed on, with a return slash and then one last horizontal swipe he tore the Beast man's throat open, dousing himself, head to toe, in his opponent's blood as his body slumped over, dead.

"My God," Hermione whispered, wide eyed, her hands covering her mouth in horror at what she was seeing. She looked to where the sun hadn't quite dipped beyond the horizon yet, and couldn't help but think that if _this_ is what Harry had been doing all night, then it was no wonder that her friend was such a mess!

"This is what Hunters do." Harry said next to her, watching the scene in front of him dispassionately. "This is The Hunt." This last was said with some distaste, the same way one would talk about a chore that they greatly dislike but know needs to be done. Hermione looked at him, aghast that he could be so cold about this, this, this _slaughter_! These people were sick and they were killing them! All the bodies in the street behind them, they must have … Harry must have been the one that killed them.

The thought of her friend doing such a thing made Hermione sick to her stomach. Not out of fear or even disgust really, but mostly out of concern for Harry. She knew him, and he wouldn't do such a thing unless he felt like he had no choice in the matter. It must weigh heavily on him, she knew.

Only one Beast man remained, cowering in the corner, armed only with a makeshift shield crafted from four two-by-fours nailed together.

"Away! Away!" He shouted as Memory Harry and the woman advanced on him. Memory Harry paused, tilting his head questioningly, but the woman didn't break stride. With a flick of her wrist her cane broke apart, segmenting into a series of small blades held together by a thin cord.

The Beast man's eyes widened terribly. "Help me! Oh God!" His desperate shout roused Memory Harry, and he looked towards his female compatriot.

"Evelyn," Memory Harry said, "Perhaps we ought to just leave him be?" Evelyn shook her head, but otherwise ignored Memory Harry, raising her weapon and slashing at the desperate Beast man twice in quick succession, his shield being thrown from his grip on the second hit. A third wrapped around his throat, and with a quick yank on Evelyn's part, his head was divested of his body to roll across the street.

 _This_ was the woman that reminded Harry of her!? She would have never done anything like that! Executing a sick man as he begged for mercy was just utterly deplorable! What was Harry thinking comparing the two of them?!

"Harry," Evelyn said tiredly, turning to spear Memory Harry with the deepest, brightest blue eyes Hermione had ever seen in her life. With a flick of her wrist her segmented whip reformed into a cane. She brought a cloth up to wipe her face of the blood that had gotten on her during the fight before returning the cloth to a coat pocket. She barely made a dent in the blood caked to her face.

"Harry," She said again, her voice low and clear, each word carefully enunciated. "We've talked about this! They aren't people anymore; they're nothing but flesh hungry beasts now." Memory Harry sighed, pulling out a handkerchief as he stepped up to her.

"I know," he said as he wiped away the blood she had missed. "I know. I just," he paused, head tilted as he looked at her. "I just wish they couldn't talk, ya know? It's hard sometimes, having to kill something that's begging for mercy."

"They might beg like men, but they'll attack like dogs once your back is turned." Evelyn said with the conviction of one with experience.

"Are you sure there isn't some cure for them?" Memory Harry asked, and Hermione smiled, glad to know that, at least in the beginning, Harry cared enough to try and help them rather than slaughter them.

Evelyn shook her head. "I'm sure. Once Beasthood sets in they are irretrievable. The only cure for them is an honest death."

"Can the same happen to us? To Hunters?" Memory Harry asked in a small voice as he put his handkerchief away, Evelyn's face relatively clear of blood now.

"Do you feel the call of the blood, Harry?" She returned, staring into his eyes in the same intense way Harry had looked into Hermione's in Dumbledore's office.

"I do. It sings to me." Memory Harry said in quiet shame. "Evelyn, I'm scared. I don't want to become like," He looked to the disproportioned bodies of the Beast men around them, " _them._ " Evelyn grasped him by the shoulders.

"Don't be afraid, Harry, I feel it too." She smiled gently at him. "We just have to be strong and not let the blood overcome our senses. Can you do that Harry? Can you be strong for me?" Harry nodded solemnly. "Good man! Now c'mon, Cathedral Ward is just up ahead, past the graveyard." She motioned towards a set of staircases in the direction they'd been moving in before the memory started, if the trail of corpses was anything to go off of.

Hermione looked back at the multitude of malformed corpses the two hunters had left in their wake, a pensive expression on her face. So, Harry and this Evelyn woman were sick as well. They just hadn't been taken by the disease yet. It must be a magical disease, there was nothing in the muggle world that even came close to the kind of physical changes these Beast men had undergone. Was it some mutated strand of lycanthropy that had spread through the city?

Evelyn said that they had to be strong. So, the disease could be overcome, or at least delayed, by sheer force of will? If that's the case then it's no wonder that Harry hasn't succumbed yet.

She turned back to Evelyn, boring holes into her back with her eyes. Is that what Harry meant when he said he lost her to the nightmare? Did she succumb to the disease? Or was she simply killed in a fight gone wrong?

Either way, she was still going to make damn sure that he went to the hospital wing as soon as this memory was over, and nothing he could say or do would stop her.

They started forward, but Evelyn stopped short in the middle of the stairs, turning around to survey the battlefield behind them with narrowed eyes. Hermione shivered as those bright blue eyes passed right over her.

"What is it?" Memory Harry asked, turning to see why she stopped.

"Nothing," she replied, "Felt eyes on my back is all. Let's go."

At the top of the stairs Memory Harry stopped again, looking down at his feet. "Oh! Hello little ones. Have you got a message for us?" He asked, a smile evident in his voice. Hermione stepped around Evelyn to get a better look, and there, at Memory Harry's feet, were a half dozen tiny, grey people who would be no more than two feet tall if they weren't sunken halfway into the floor which rippled oddly around them. They vaguely reminded Hermione of house elves, if a bit smaller. Curious, Hermione stepped closer, bending down to get a good look at them only to suck in a shocked breath when she got a good look at their faces.

Or rather: their complete lack of a face. The little beings had no discernible eyes, merely empty folds in their skin where eyes were supposed to be. They turned these empty folds to Memory Harry and flapped similarly empty folds where a mouth would normally go, and some of them didn't even have that right: with the mouth fold running up from the chin and between the eyes.

The little ones reached down between them, pulling up a roll of parchment that glowed with some form of magic. Unfurling it across their upraised hands, the revealed writing was, to Hermione, an unreadable jumble of runes, some familiar but many completely foreign to her.

Memory Harry glanced shortly at the message before saying to Evelyn, "'Beware of Hunter' is what it says."

She frowned unhappily at that, stepping closer to see for herself, and, in the process, stepping right through Hermione. A violent shiver ran through the bushy-haired girl as she scrambled to her feet and away from the blonde Huntress and right into someone else.

"Miss Granger, are you alright?" Professor Dumbledore's question made her jump, head snapping up to look at the elderly wizard.

"Professor!" She exclaimed. "I'm sorry, you've been so quiet I forgot you were here." Harry chuckled at her reaction from where he stood next to his memory self, who was oddly shorter than him, but she resolved to figure _that_ out later.

Instead, she looked at their professor curiously, who guessed her upcoming question.

"I'm," He paused, looking around at the dark brick buildings around them and back at the bloodied corpses left in the two Hunters' wake. "Taking it all in. It's a bit hard to wrap my head around at the moment, I'm afraid."

Hermione knew exactly what the professor meant. Trying to compartmentalize and really understand everything that they had seen in the short time since the memory began would likely take hours and repeated viewings if this kept up.

She was emphatically _not_ looking forward to having to watch this again if she had to.

"Thank you, little ones." Memory Harry said as he patted one of them on the head. "You've brought us a fine note." They all did a little dance at that, seemingly pleased to have been of help to the two Hunters.

"Be ready for anything." Evelyn said to Memory Harry as he rose, and together they stepped through an archway and into a graveyard, Hermione and the headmaster on their heels while Harry had gone ahead, preceding his memory self in.

The graveyard was a large circular courtyard dotted with dead trees and clusters of tombstones. Penned in as it was by the high walls of the surrounding buildings; the waning light of the setting sun barely illuminated the space. Harry was bent over a seemingly random patch of dirt near the center of the graveyard, muttering to himself in a voice too low for anyone to make out. At the opposite end from where they had entered was a wide staircase, the only other exit that Hermione could see. Stood near the stairs was a rather large man with long white hair, dressed not dissimilarly to Memory Harry, although his darker outfit, and especially his rumpled black hat, vaguely reminded Hermione of missionaries from the Old American West. At his feet lay one of the Beast men, already broken and bleeding but still very much alive as it tried desperately to crawl away from the Hunter that stood above it.

Evelyn and Memory Harry stopped short when they noticed him, watching as the large man hefted an enormous one handed axe above his head before bringing it down with a dull _thud_ into the incapacitated Beast man's chest, the resulting arterial spray not making the Hunter flinch in the slightest. The man forcefully wrenched his weapon from the now very dead Beast man at his feet, and rose to his full height, what looked like a blunderbuss in his off hand.

"Beasts all over the shop," he spoke in a quiet brogue, head cocked as if listening intently to something. "You'll join them, sooner or later." And then he turned, revealing blood stained bandages wrapped around his eyes, baring too sharp teeth in a low snarl that eerily reminded Hermione of the sound Harry made after Professor McGonagall separated them during their heated and rather random kiss. Hermione blushed slightly as she remembered it, feeling heat start to rise in her core, but she furiously stomped the feeling down with a ruthlessness that would surprise no one. What an inappropriate time for _those_ kinds of thoughts!

"Father Gascoigne?" Memory Harry said tentatively, but the blind man ignored him, instead charging towards them at full tilt, his axe raised high, poised to strike.

Evelyn and Memory Harry looked at each for a moment before simultaneously bolting in opposite directions just as the mad Hunter's weapon fell where Memory Harry had been stood a moment before with a resounding clash.

Hermione 'eeped!' when the force of the blow sent a small dust cloud up around him.

Gascoigne whirled towards Memory Harry, dodging around the strike aimed for his back while simultaneously blasting him with his blunderbuss, sending Memory Harry recoiling back to his knees. The mad hunter swiftly reloaded before raising his axe, intent on taking advantage of Memory Harry's stunned state, but before he could Evelyn's whip lashed across his back, sending him reeling from the sudden shock of pain.

Gascoigne whirled again, just in time for Evelyn to score another strike, across his chest this time, but he ignored the pain and leapt for her, swinging his axe furiously as she danced around his powerful but slow blows with apparent ease.

Then Memory Harry was there, having apparently recovered from being shot point blank in the chest in just a few seconds, sprinting into Gascoigne and raking his serrated blade across his back over and over, doing unspeakable damage to the mad Hunter's coat and sending crimson arcs of blood flying in every direction. The handle of Gascoigne's axe extended and, taking it in both hands, he spun suddenly on the spot, bringing his blade around and into Memory Harry with a meaty _thunk_ that sent him flying into a nearby tombstone.

"Harry!" Hermione and Evelyn gasped at the same time. Hermione shot the huntress a look, seeing the same concern she felt reflected back in those deep blue eyes, despite her mouth being twisted into a hateful scowl that bordered on a primal showing of teeth.

Maybe there was a little they had in common after all, even if it _was_ just concern for Harry's wellbeing.

Harry, who was still examining that random patch of ground, didn't even look up as he said, "Yes 'Mione?" She looked at her friend, taking in that he was there, watching this memory, _his_ memory, with them, and very much alive, and the sudden spike of fear at seeing him wounded so brutally dulled into only-slightly-more-than-mild concern.

Gascoigne made to move towards Evelyn but lurched to a sudden stop, his head cocked back towards where Memory Harry sat in a slowly growing puddle of his own blood, shaking his head as if to clear it. "What's that smell?" The mad Hunter asked sharply, scenting the air much like a dog would. "The sweet blood, oh," He turned fully back to Memory Harry, who was watching him with wide eyes as he tried to claw his way back up to a standing position using the headstone for support. "It sings to me. It's enough to make a man sick."

The mad Hunter leapt once more into an overhead strike aimed to cleave Memory Harry in two, who could only raise his arms in a vain attempt to protect himself, but then Evelyn was there, the same pistol that Harry had shown them in the headmaster's office raised and fired point blank into Gascoigne's chest. The thoroughly bloodied Hunter jerked in mid-air before landing at Evelyn's feet and collapsing to one knee, a hand clasped to his newest wound.

Evelyn stalked forward, jabbing her cane into the ground by her feet before forcefully shoving her gloved hand passed Gascoigne's own and _into_ his new wound. Wrist deep in her prey's chest, she lifted him up to look him in his bandaged eyes before suddenly and harshly ripping her hand sideways and out of Gascoigne's chest in a great wave of crimson that coated both of them from head to toe. Gascoigne collapsed onto his back several feet away, moaning in pain, but made no move to get up.

Evelyn sniffed disdainfully at the downed man before turning on her heel, plucking her cane from the ground, and dashing to Memory Harry's side.

"Blood vial!" She barked at him as she steadied him on his feet. "Honestly Harry, did you _really_ forget about them?" Memory Harry grimaced and mumbled something back that Hermione couldn't make out it was so quiet. "Well don't let it happen again. I won't always be there to save you. You have to be able to take care of yourself." Memory Harry nodded, pulling a small hypodermic full of blood out of a pouch on his belt and unceremoniously jabbing it into his leg.

Okay, maybe they had more in common than just a concern for Harry's wellbeing.

To Hermione's complete astonishment, his wound immediately sealed up as if it had never been there to begin with. Evelyn looked him over once and, seemingly satisfied that he'd be able to stand on his own, stepped back to look at Gascoigne where he still lay, moaning in pain.

"He's lost to the blood." She said regretfully. "There's only one thing to be done for him now." Memory Harry said nothing, only nodding his head absently as he watched. Evelyn made her way back to Gascoigne, standing near the man's head and raising her cane to strike him across the jaw, a blow that would surely break his neck and end his suffering.

A blow that never landed.

As Evelyn swung her weapon, Gascoigne howled, exploding outwards in a cloud of dust and debris that threw Evelyn onto her back several yards away. She leapt to her feet while Memory Harry stared at the dust cloud with wide eyes. Before the dust could even begin to settle, a great beast, like a werewolf on steroids, wearing the tattered remains of Gascoigne's outfit came charging at him faster than anything Hermione had ever seen.

Clawed hands swung at Memory Harry in an animalistic furor, unrelenting in its ceaselessness as the massive beast that used to be a man continued advancing, forcing Memory Harry back with every swipe. Memory Harry ducked, dodged, and wove his way around and between what attacks he could, but he could not dodge them all, the occasional spurt of blood the only outwards sign that he had been struck. All the while, Evelyn followed, her whip biting into the back of the beast again and again, but it would not be deterred from its chosen prey and pursued him until his back was up to a wall.

Hermione gnawed on her lip in silent worry as she watched the memory of her friend be brutalized in such a fashion, unable to look away despite the horror of it all. And now with his back to a wall how was he going to get out of this alive?

No sooner had she had the thought then a gunshot rang out and the monster that Gascoigne had become fell to one knee at Memory Harry's feet. Just like Evelyn before him, he rammed his gloved hand into Gascoigne's chest as deep as he could, managing to reach in to his elbow, before tearing his hand back out sideways.

Unlike Evelyn, Harry's hand did not emerge empty. Instead, grasped there in his bloodied fist was Gascoigne's too large, but still beating heart.

The beast fell back from Memory Harry, howling plaintively for a moment before falling still and silent. Memory Harry stared down at what used to be a Hunter like himself, breathing heavily, for a heartbeat before saying to Evelyn, in an utterly lost voice, "What are we going to tell his daughter?"

The scene in front of them dissolved, and Hermione, Headmaster Dumbledore, and Harry were back in the Headmaster's office, standing over the pensieve.

And there, only an inch away from her face, waist deep in the silvery liquid of memory, was the face of one of the little ones.


	2. A New Arrival

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Albus contemplates things. Harry gets a checkup. Hermione learns a valuable lesson. Hogwarts gets a new resident.

Albus Dumbledore had seen quite a lot in his long life.

He'd witnessed at least a dozen children being born. Watched as the parents' faces lit up, a love strong enough to defy anything and everything blossoming in their hearts as they held their little one in their arms for the first time. He's spent decades in Hogwarts, witnessed the many scores of children that have passed through its halls learn, grow, mature, and forge friendships that would stand the test of time. He's presided over a handful of weddings, issuing the vows that would bind a couple together forever in their mutual devotion to each other, and attended dozens more.

Unfortunately, the human experience has been, in his experience, filled with as much sorrow and heartache as it has been filled with love and joy.

For every birth he has seen, he knows three children that have lost at least one parent.

For every friendship forged in the halls of Hogwarts, there is a child that wanders alone, ignored or even bullied by their fellow students.

For every loving couple he has seen swear vows to each other, he has attended a funeral.

He's seen the horrors of a war the likes of which had not been seen before or since. He's walked the paths of Auschwitz, seen the gruesome experiments carried out there by wizards and muggles alike, all at the behest of a man that he once loved. It was there, faced with the truth of mankind's (not wizard, not muggle, but _human_ ) capability for monstrousness, that the hatred of muggles he had nursed since his father's imprisonment died a quiet death, passing from his being almost without him realizing it. It was there that he realized that you could not fight hate with hate, or destroy fear with fear, that trying to battle such an inferno with your own flame would only stoke them both, and in the end all would burn in the fires of hate and despair.

The angry, bitter, hate-filled young man that was Albus Dumbledore, the same one that had watched as the light left his dear sisters eyes and felt _relief_ in the deepest, darkest part of his heart, died that day and a new Albus Dumbledore took his place. But, the war was far from over, and Albus had not seen the end of the abyss.

He never spoke of the things he saw in Grindelwald's fortress. He very rarely even thought of it, and that was only on the nights when he awoke, shaking and in a cold sweat, from the nightmares that still haunted him even fifty years later.

Many called Voldemort the greatest dark wizard to ever live, but they did not know the depths that Gellert Grindelwald had sunk to in his madness. They did not see the piles of malformed corpses, or hear the wails of those that had not been lucky enough to die as they begged him, _begged him_ to kill them, to free them from a suffering he could not comprehend. They, who thought that the Great Albus Dumbledore held the sanctity of life above all else, did not know how many died by his wand that day. On that day he learned that there truly are some fates worse than death, that death could be a mercy for those whose suffering knows no end.

It was also the day that he denied such a mercy to a man he once loved.

And now, it would seem, he thought to himself as he looked at the messengers that had been waist deep in his pensieve since he returned from Grindelwald's fortress, that young Harry had gotten a glimpse into the same madness that took Grindelwald. That memory was only the beginning, he was sure. How much more could he have seen in a single night? What kind of horrors must he have seen?

Does he have any right to ask? Albus turned a concerned eye to Harry, in the chair he had collapsed into the moment the memory had ended. The lad looked frightfully exhausted, as if he stayed awake through sheer force of will alone. Albus remembered what kind of state he was in after defeating Grindelwald and, now that he thought of it, it reminded him, a sinking feeling in his gut, of the state Harry was in now.

He had no doubt that if it weren't for his close relationship with Miss Granger, coupled with her ferociously inquisitive nature, that Harry would not have opened up to them so soon. Albus wondered if it was a good thing for him to talk so soon or not. Pushing him before the wounds had even had a chance to _begin_ to heal might just make them worse.

It was a good thing Minerva had dismissed herself while they were in the memory. The fewer people pestering him about this Nightmare he had gone through, the better.

Albus pondered this as Hermione, who had been examining the messengers in curiosity after she got over the initial startle of something being there that wasn't before, turned to regard Harry with a concerned look.

"Harry." She said softly, tears glistening in her eyes. He looked up at her, a faint glimmer of hope shining through the exhaustion in his eyes. She stepped up to him, reaching out to tangle her fingers in his blood crusted hair and pulling him close to cradle his head against her stomach. His arms immediately wrapped around her waist, eagerly accepting the physical comfort she was offering.

This complete and eager acceptance of physical affection was so _unlike_ him. Had that Evelyn woman managed to break down the solid brick wall of personal space Harry had been so careful to maintain up until now?

"Harry," she started again, "That, what you just showed us, how much more is there?"

Harry shook his head where it pressed against her and said nothing. Hermione's brow furrowed and she started carding her fingers gently through his hair, avoiding or breaking up the clumps of dried blood she came across where she could.

"Who was that man that attacked you?" She tried again, only garnering an identical, if slightly more forceful, shake of the head in response.

"What are these things that brought you that message? And, what are they doing in Professor Dumbledore's pensieve?" Harry just kept shaking his head. Hermione frowned in confused concern at the top of Harry's head. Where was this sudden reticence coming from? He'd been answering all their questions before they watched that memory, albeit with things that ultimately made no sense to her, so what had changed?

"Harry," she said again, a hint of exasperation starting to leak into her tone. Harry stiffened noticeably, his head stilling completely at her change in tone.

"You have to talk to us if you want us to _help_ you-" Harry jerked back, pulling out of her grip and looking up at her with the most stricken expression she had ever seen on him.

"Miss Granger!" Hermione whipped around to meet the stern gaze of her headmaster.

"I think that is quite enough, Miss Granger. Now please, have a seat." He waved towards the chair on Harry's left and waited for her to comply before he continued.

"Harry, I feel I must apologize." Harry sat up straight in his chair, his attention riveted on the headmaster, surprised at the sudden turn in the conversation.

"I underestimated just what it was you must have gone through last night," the headmaster continued, the weight of true remorse weighing his words and shoulders down. "Had I known, I would not have pushed you to share with us so soon."

"It's alright, Professor. You couldn't have known." Harry said with a dismissive shrug and was rewarded with a kind smile from the Professor.

"But, now that I do have some understanding, I must ask something of you my boy." Harry tensed at this, so the Headmaster smiled reassuringly, the twinkle returning to his eye for the first time since they exited the memory. "Do this old man's heart some good and go see Madame Pomfrey. Tell her that I want her to give you a thorough check up. Top to bottom. Can you do that for me Harry?"

The rigid set of Harry's shoulders melted at this, and the boy smiled a bit at his headmaster. "I can do that, Professor. Sounds like a good idea, actually. Would you like me to go now?"

The headmaster nodded and so Harry got up to leave, picking his discarded hat up off the ground on his way out. Hermione moved to follow him, but Dumbledore speared her with a look that told her exactly what his words did not a moment later.

"You are not yet dismissed, Miss Granger. We need to talk." Harry looked over his shoulder at this, glancing between his best friend and headmaster a few times before shaking his head, plopping his hat back on his head, and making his way out the door for the hospital wing.

"Headmaster? What did you want to talk about?" Dumbledore quietly regarded the girl sat in front of him, collecting his thoughts. After several moments of contemplative silence, the headmaster sighed and steepled his fingers in front of his face.

"Miss Granger, I need you to understand the gravity of what it is Harry went through last night."

Hermione cut in, much to Dumbledore's quiet displeasure. "Professor, with all due respect, I don't think _either_ of us understands, and we won't until we get a good explanation of this Nightmare he had."

He shook his head, disappointed but not surprised at her attitude. "While we may never have a perfect understanding of _exactly_ what he went through, such an understanding is not necessary. Indeed, to get such a thing out of him, especially so soon after the traumatic happenings themselves, would require us to essentially pour salt in some very fresh wounds, to put it simply." Hermione frowned at this.

"But Professor, my parents have always taught me that it is a good thing, a helpful thing, to open up about what has hurt you and talk about it with people you trust. Holding it in doesn't help anything."

Dumbledore smiled gently at the girl. "They are not wrong. Much good can come from opening up to those that you care greatly for." Hermione smiled triumphantly, but the headmaster continued solemnly.

"That being said: to _force_ someone to talk about trauma that they have gone through, especially so soon after it has happened, more often than not does far more harm than good." Her triumphant smile slipped away, replaced with a thoughtful frown.

"Headmaster, are you sure …" and she trailed off questioningly, not quite sure herself of what she was trying to ask.

"Take me for example." He said, and Hermione looked at him in confused curiosity. No doubt she was wondering when the Great Albus Dumbledore had ever been traumatized.

Sometimes Albus truly despised the heroic status afforded to him by the wizarding public. His own mythos was so strong that even incredibly intelligent witches like Miss Granger often forgot that he was human, with flaws and fears and everything else that made people who they are.

He continued before she had a chance to ask a question. "Many years ago, I traveled into Germany and lead an assault on Grindelwald's fortress. You know, of course, that I dueled him and that I defeated him." Hermione nodded her head, though the confusion hadn't quite left her eyes yet.

"Everyone knows that. But, there was much that happened before I found him you see." Albus' already serious tone took on a somber note. "Terrible things. Things much like what we saw in that memory of Harry's." A glint of understanding sparked in the girl's eyes, her mouth opening in a silent 'oh.' No doubt she saw where he was going with this, but it needed to be said regardless.

"I was in much the same state Harry is in now after I fought Grindelwald. I came to terms with what I saw on my own. I had to. Just the thought of what I had seen, what I had done?" The headmaster shook his head. "I could not speak of it for many years."

Hermione's eyes turned to her lap, watching as her hands idly fussed with the edge of her jumper. He could practically see the flurry of thoughts going through Hermione's head as she processed what he had told her. After a moment spent chewing her lip in thought, she nodded once, decisively, and turned determined eyes up to his.

"What should I do Headmaster?" Albus couldn't help but smile at the girl's dedication to her friend. He idly wondered if that kiss those two had shared actually meant anything, or if Harry had just done it in a moment of mania. Only time would tell, he supposed. Although … perhaps it would be wise to insure that the two spoke of it before doing anything they might regret. He would hate to see such a beautiful friendship ruined by something as small as a misunderstanding.

"Be there for him. Support him. Listen when he wants to talk, and respect him when he wishes to remain silent. Don't push him to talk before he's ready. In a word? Be his friend, Miss Granger. It's as simple as that."

"Simple. Right." The girl muttered under her breath, but the Headmaster heard her.

"That was all I wanted to say, Miss Granger. Now, I'm sure you'd like to catch up to Harry." Hermione nodded eagerly and stood, ready to leave his office.

"Let him know that he's excused from classes until he feels up to them again." Here Dumbledore smiled at her. "And I will let your professors know that you and Mr. Weasley are also excused from classes today. I daresay that Harry will need the support of his friends now more than ever."

Hermione beamed gratefully at him, relief clear in her eyes. "Thank you Headmaster! I was rather worried about leaving him alone in the state he's in." Then, what the headmaster had said caught up to her completely, making her worry her lip for a moment before continuing.

"Headmaster, I'm afraid that Harry and Ron had a rather," She paused, looking for the right words, "heated argument last night about Harry's entry into the Tournament. I am not sure we can count on Ron being of any help right now."

The headmaster nodded sagely, fully aware of this. "Be that as it may, it would be wrong to not at least give him the choice, would it not? He may choose wrong, but he could surprise you." Hermione nodded, but didn't seem all that convinced.

"I shall inform Mr. Weasley when I return to the Great Hall. Off you pop!" Hermione nodded and left his office. The headmaster watched her leave, and then waited a bit to allow some distance to grow between them before making his way back to the Great Hall.

They were in the same direction from his office, and he wanted a moment alone to try and gather his thoughts. Doubtless it would help Miss Granger as well, assuming she didn't break into a run the moment she was out of sight.

The walk back to the Great Hall was not terribly long, and before he knew it Albus was behind the head table, watching a small, impromptu staff meeting happen around the strange blue lamp that had heralded Harry's arrival. The only staff member not present was Alastor, but that was not surprising. Alastor never ate in public unless forced to do so.

Albus was glad to note that the ground around the lamp had stopped rippling, though the addition of the four messengers, submerged up to their waists in the floor irrespective of how solid it was, that were praying at its base troubled him somewhat. He had only ever seen those strange beings in places that had a great deal to do with memory, pensieves and the like, so what were they doing grouped around this lamp and praying of all things?

"Curiouser and curiouser!" Filius muttered to himself after finishing a small battery of charms aimed at the lamp. Albus silently agreed with his colleague, rubbing his beard idly.

"What do you make of it Filius?" The headmaster asked.

"Oh, headmaster!" The diminutive Charms Master squeaked in surprise. "I can't seem to make heads or tails of this. What is it?"

Albus shook his head, noting how the messengers turned to watch their conversation with silent, hollow expressions. "I am afraid I don't know. What can you tell me Filius? Anything you've learned, no matter how trivial it seems."

With a short bob of his head, Flitwick continued excitedly. "I've tried every spell I could think of on it, short of Fiendfyre of course. I think that it might be indestructible. It can't be moved, charmed-"

Minerva cut in, an agitated lilt to her voice. "Or transfigured."

Filius nodded, unfazed at the interruption. "Severus tried to melt it with some acid he created, but that had no effect." Albus noted that Severus sat at the table eating his breakfast, seemingly ignoring the goings on around the lamp. His lack of success in damaging the lamp must have frustrated him to no end.

"If you look closely, you'll notice that the light it emits is from a small blue flame. It produces no heat, casts no shadows," Albus' eyes went wide as he looked around at those gathered there, and, sure enough, not one of them cast a shadow from the pale blue light of the lamp. Strangely enough though, the messengers _did._

"And nothing we've tried has been able to put it out." Filius continued, eyeing the lamp like it was an opponent in a duel that had bested him. "Listen closely, do you hear that?"

He did. Just audible over the din of students having breakfast in the Great Hall was a faint hum, wavering through the air like the sound of a bell stretched out and out until it seemed to have no clear beginning or end. It was a strangely beautiful, yet haunting sound.

"Like a bell it is." Hagrid said. "Wonder what happens if ye ring it?" With that, Hagrid stepped forward and, bending down lower than anyone thought the massive man capable of, he gave the bell hanging from the bottom of the lamp a flick.

It rang a soft, tinkling tune that traveled the breadth of the Great Hall not by virtue of being loud, but by simply _refusing_ to be drowned out by anything. The clattering of silverware on plates and the dull roar of conversation in the still quite full Great Hall ceased at once, only to turn into confused murmurings as the tune didn't stop, didn't pick up pace, or slow, but somehow intensified, as if the sound came from _within_ their ears rather than from without.

The floor around the lamp rippled once again, the messengers there gathering to one side of the lamp, forming a circle. They reached down, through the floor betwixt them, sinking in up to their shoulders in what should have been solid stone. Then, as Albus Dumbledore and his unseeing staff watched, the messengers began to lift something out of the floor.

* * *

Harry, hat pulled low and scarf back in place to keep the curious at bay during his trek across the castle, pushed the doors of the Hospital Wing open, walking with purposeful strides towards the office at its back despite the nervous twitching of his eyes around and over every corner, nook, and cranny.

He tried desperately to ignore how the shadows crept towards him, slithering over the floor from where they should be whenever he wasn't looking straight at them, only to snap back into place the moment his eyes fell on them.

This is ridiculous; he thought to himself, he's in _Hogwarts_! He should be safe, he should _feel_ safe dammit!

"But really," Evelyn's voice whispered in his ear, Harry stopping cold in the middle of the Hospital wing, eyes wide as saucers. "When are we ever _truly_ safe, except for when we're alone?" The heat of her breath ghosted over his ear, sending a shiver down his spine and his head whipping in her direction.

"Evelyn! Where have you-" Only empty air greeted him. "Been?" He finished in a whisper, frantically looking up and down the length of the Hospital Wing for his partner, spinning on his heel, hoping to catch a glimpse of her as she slipped out of the doors that he knew had closed behind him when he entered.

Nothing.

He was alone.

The shadows had stopped seeking him out.

And he had never felt so unsafe in Hogwarts in all his life.

Harry's hands twitched, itching for the comforting weight of a weapon, but he tamped the urge down, taking off his hat to run shaking fingers through his hair instead.

_What was that?_

Oh, he remembered well when Evelyn had said it to him, pressed against the wall of the workshop, her lips at his ear and his manhood in her delicate yet calloused grasp. It was the first time, his first time, but it was by far not the last.

A memory then. A memory, and nothing more.

"Echoes of the past." He muttered to himself, putting it out of his mind with a sharp shake of his head.

Just then, the office door at the end of the Hospital Wing opened and Madame Pomfrey bustled out, scrutinizing him from top to bottom.

"Hello," She started in a clipped tone. "What brings you here, sir?" Harry lowered his face covering and her eyes lit up with recognition. "Mr. Potter! What have you done this time? Term has just started!" In an instant her wand was in her hand and she was advancing on him, arm raised and ready to cast with the smallest flick.

Harry flinched hard, jerking back a few steps to maintain his distance. The Madame stopped, her wand arm lowering slightly, a worried frown pulling at her mouth.

Harry, fists clenched at his sides to stop their incessant shaking, spoke quickly and only just loudly enough for the Matron to hear. "Sorry, just don't – not so fast, yeah? Give a bloke a coronary." He forced a chuckle, but her expression didn't lighten. If anything it darkened further. Regardless, she nodded her head once, and Harry continued.

"Err, yeah. The Headmaster wants you to give me a checkup. 'Top to bottom,' is what he said." The Matron's eyes narrowed slightly at that.

"Very well. Pick a bed and get down to your skivvies."

He looked at her questioningly as he moved to a nearby bed. "Never needed to be starkers before."

She drew the curtains around the bed, and plopped a bin at his feet. "Not starkers, Mr. Potter. Your underwear will do. Put your clothes in this bin, if you would." Harry nodded, shucking his overcoat and dumping it into the bin where it landed with a strange thud. It was heavier than it looked with all of his assorted gear stowed away in it.

"Now I have some questions I need to ask you, Mr. Potter, as part of your physical."

He eyed her warily as he undid the straps that held his undercoat shut, but he nodded his acquiescence.

"First off, why are you covered in bloodstains?"

"None of it's mine." His undercoat dropped into the bin, leaving him in a white cotton shirt heavily splattered with brown, dried blood.

"That's not what I asked." Her hands went to her hips and she pinned him with a stern look, but she was no Hermione. She was not his friend, or a trusted professor, or anyone to him really. He owed her precisely _nothing_.

"That's all the answer you're getting." He stated matter of factly, his hands making quick work of unbuttoning his shirt as he spoke.

Madame Pomfrey huffed but moved on. "Have you taken any potions recently?" Harry nodded but didn't elaborate. "What kind of potion?" He just tilted his head at her in question. "I need to know so that I can account for it later, otherwise I might get erroneous readings which could spell your _death_ young man!"

Harry was utterly unmoved by the threat of death, but he was running on empty already and didn't have the energy to argue the point. Besides, he'd already told Dumbledore and 'Mione about it, telling the school nurse couldn't hurt.

"I took a sedative not even an hour ago." He pulled his shirt off and dropped it into the bin, then sat on the bed behind him to work at getting his nearly knee high boots off.

"What kind of sedative?" Harry sighed, pulling the bin of his clothes close enough to rile through. A moment later he pushed it away, now with a bottle of the milky white sedative in hand. He held it up for her to see.

"This kind."

"Hmph," she reached out and plucked the small bottle out of his hand, secreting it away in some pouch on her voluminous healer robes. "I will have to examine it before I do any of the blood work."

Harry froze, one boot off and the other halfway down. "Blood work?" He said in a small voice.

"Of course. I need to test you for any blood borne illnesses, _especially_ since you found reason to become covered in blood that was not your own at some point." Harry's blood rushed in his ears. His pupils shrunk to pin pricks in a sea of green, muscles having gone taught with animalistic fear.

"No." The word was barely a whimper, but the Matron heard him.

"Really Mr. Potter, it's nothing to be concerned about. The needle is charmed to be completely painless, you won't-"

"NO!" Harry scrambled backwards over the hospital bunk, his boot sent soaring in his sudden feverish need to _get away_. "You can't have my blood! Get away!" He turned and launched himself off the edge of the bunk, aiming to go through the curtain and run as far away from here as he could get, only to slam into the unyielding wall that the curtain had suddenly become.

He whipped around, chest heaving with desperate breaths, and saw Madame Pomphrey's wand pressed against the curtain.

She made it solid.

He's trapped.

 _She_ trapped him here!

With a terrible scream, Harry launched himself back over the hospital bunk, intent on tearing the Matron apart.

There was a flash of red, and Harry knew no more.

* * *

The first thing the assembled professors saw was a bonnet. Colored in dark, muted tones, a bundle of three dried roses pinned to one side, it rose upon a head of long white hair.

"Well I'll be." Hagrid muttered. The rest watched, some in wide eyed amazement, and one particularly short professor watching with no small amount of glee bleeding through. Of them all, only the headmaster had his wand in hand, though he kept it lowered, hoping not to accidentally provoke whoever was coming through the lamp.

She wore a long, hooded shawl decorated with golden tassels and filigree along the edge over top of a corseted dress. She came to rest just as the floor stopped rippling, kneeling in much the same way Harry had been when he came through the lamp. The messengers moved back, still encircling her, but did not take their gaze away from her.

A shockingly pale hand reached out to gently pat the nearest messenger on the head.

"Ahh, thank you, Little Ones." She spoke in a soft, melodic voice that, if Dumbledore was not mistaken, had a Czech accent to it. The messengers made a strange noise somewhere between a grunt and a coo before sliding through the floor and back to the lamp to resume their vigil.

"Hello Madame," Albus started, feeling just a hint of Déjà vu at the situation, as the woman rose to her full height and turned towards him. Her hands were loosely laid over one another in front of her, her feet close together, shoulders relaxed but back straight. The stance of a regal woman that was completely comfortable in her environment. But, that was not the first thing Albus noted about her.

Albus Dumbledore was not a short man by any stretch of the imagination. Standing at a little over six feet, he was quite used to only ever having to look up to Hagrid and Madame Maxime. So it was that he was pleasantly surprised, novel things are so rare at his age after all, that this newcomer was the same height as him.

All of this Albus took in during the short pause he took as the woman turned to acknowledge him.

"Welcome to Hogwarts. What brings you here?" The woman smiled warmly at him, tilting her head as she considered him with eyes unlike any Albus had ever seen before. Slanted slightly, and set in a delicate face with a pointed jaw, her eyes were pools of liquid silver edged in black that shone with a faint inner light like an inverted solar eclipse, where the Sun was darkened and the moon made all the brighter for it.

He could see the kindness in those eyes, the compassion she held in her heart, and he knew in his heart that this was a good woman. But, Albus was a careful man, so he disregarded his instincts, and sent a gentle Legilimancy probe her way, just to be sure.

The light of her eyes swallowed his vision, a great wall of soft moonlight rising up, impenetrable, unassailable, eclipsing all that he knew or could ever know, and Albus Dumbledore suddenly felt very small, like a mote of dust floating in an endless ocean. His probe fizzled in his mind, returning nothing, not even her surface thoughts to him. He was about to withdraw, unwilling to test something of this enormity, when the moonlight shifted towards him.

It bypassed his probe entirely, following along its roots and straight to Albus' own mental barriers. On other days, Albus would often think his barriers were quite strong. Not the best in the world certainly, but he was confident in his ability to defend himself.

Not now.

Not against the enormity of the entity shining now into his mind. It reached out, a feather like ray of light extending to brush against his psyche as his probe had done, and his mental shields buckled and cracked, giving way almost immediately to the force behind such a gentle caress. He winced, pain lancing through his mind as he raced to reinforce his shields, to _focus_ enough to at least hold himself together under whatever assault this being was about to launch at him.

Only for it to recoil immediately as his pain radiated out of his cracked shield. The miasma of silvery moonlight pulled back, just to the edges of his consciousness, and he could feel its attention on him as he repaired the damage it had, seemingly unintentionally, caused. It reached out again, tentatively this time, only the faintest wisp of its consciousness extending to him. Albus braced himself, preparing for even such a small touch to utterly shatter his already damaged mental barriers. If it could do that much damage so easily, what would happen to him when it got through?

He prayed that it had good intentions, because if it did not then he would likely not survive it.

The thin wisp of moonlight ever so lightly brushed against his shields, and this time there was no pain, no pressure from its presence. Instead, it brushed along the edges of his barriers, spreading soothing warmth that seeped through to his very core. In its wake his barriers repaired themselves, and pain was lost, becoming only a distant memory he had to struggle to remember.

Before he knew it, his barriers were completely repaired and, with a gentle caress that Albus _knew_ was an apology for the pain it had inadvertently caused him, the entity withdrew from his mind, though the light it had cast into him, even through his barrier, did not fade entirely.

For a short moment Albus stayed within the comfort of his own mind, reflecting on how much brighter everything seemed now.

He opened his eyes, and was surprised to find himself on his knees at the woman's feet, one of his hands clasped between both of her own, a faint aura of swirling light quickly dissipating as she opened shining eyes and smiled apologetically at him. Albus made to rise, her hands gently tightening around his as she helped him to his feet.

It was then, as he stood and really _looked_ at her face for the first time, that he saw how perfectly smooth and pale she was, like porcelain, and how, despite its warmth, her hand was hard and unyielding.

Around him, his staff members had gathered, some with wands in hand, all with concerned expressions, but Minerva was the only one to voice their concerns.

"Headmaster, are you alright?" He said nothing, only nodding absently, never taking his eyes away from those silver pools of moonglow. She looked him over with a critical eye, and, upon seeing nothing obviously wrong, turned a suspicious eye onto the woman still holding his hand between her own.

"What are you?" The headmaster asked softly before he could think better of it. He was distantly aware of his staff letting out small noises of astonishment at his question, but he ignored them. He'd have to have an actual staff meeting tonight to explain … what? What could he possibly tell them? He put that line of thought out of his mind for now.

The woman's smile did not waver, and her voice was kind as she answered. "I am a Doll, created by you humans." Dumbledore's brow furrowed. Doubtless she was telling the truth, and that meant that she looked like she was made of porcelain because she _was_. But, no magic that he knew of, real or from ancient legends, could endow a simple doll with life.

There was no question in his mind that the Doll was alive. No inanimate object, no matter how heavily enchanted or sentient it became, could have legilimency successfully cast on it. If she was inanimate and merely enchanted, or even sentient as the Sorting Hat was, then the spell would do nothing.

What had just happened was most certainly _not_ nothing.

"Where did you come from?" Albus realized that his hand was still held between hers, and that one of her thumbs was rubbing soothing circles on the back of his hand, sending strange pulses of warmth through him.

She raised his hand up to inspect it. "From the Dream. From the Moon. From the heart of Man. All of these are true, but without any one of them I would not be here now." She made a small noise of triumph, and brought his hand up between them, forcing Albus to look at it.

"There you are, good as new." She smiled a bright smile at him, but Albus didn't really see it, or hear the gasps and astonished shouts of his staff around him, far too preoccupied with his hand.

His smooth, no longer liver spotted, _young looking hand_. He moved his other hand to trace where there used to be a spot roughly the same shape as Illinois, and felt his heart stutter in his chest when he realized his other hand was just as flawless and young looking as the first.

He flipped his hands over, examining them front to back, pulling his sleeves back only to find that his arms were the same way: not a wrinkle or any sign of his advanced age to be found. His beard was just as long and white as it should be, he noted with a strange mix of relief and disappointment. But then his hands found his face, and under his still white beard was the hard cut face of his youth. Smooth skin greeted him wherever his hands roamed, and as his half moon glasses slipped further down his nose he realized that everything seemed clearer now.

"What did you do?" He asked the Doll. She giggled at him, one hand daintily covering her mouth as she did so.

"I channeled the echoes of power in your blood, as I have done for countless others." She said this as if it was no great feat, to return a man more than a century old to the prime of his youth! He could not stop the laugh that burst out of him at the thought, or repress the beaming smile that followed.

Then, something she had said earlier clicked in his brain.

He looked over his staff gathered around the two of them, all of them looking between him and the Doll with the most astonished and downright hilarious looks on their faces. Minerva's reputation as the ever-stern task master would certainly be shattered if any of the students saw her in the state she was in now: slack-jawed and with wide eyes zipping comically back and forth between him and the still smiling Doll.

But, as amusing as their reactions were, it would be best if he and the Doll had a chance to speak without prying ears.

"I do believe that classes will be starting soon." Albus said to his staff before casting a quick tempus to illustrate his point. "And classes are most enlightening when the professors actually attend, wouldn't you all agree?" He finished with a smirk and a twinkle in his eye.

Hagrid, the lovable beast of a man that he was, laughed outright at that. "Aye, that they are Professor." With another chuckle, Hagrid walked away from the assembled group. Severus was the first to follow, understanding the dismissal for what it was, but not before glaring distrustfully at the Doll. Albus sighed internally at that, not looking forward to hearing whatever logic Severus invented to hate the Doll. The others followed, but Minerva and Filius held back.

"Worry not Minerva, she means me no harm." He said before the frowning woman could voice her thoughts. "And Filius?" The tiny man tore his overly intent gaze away from the Doll to meet his Headmaster's eye. "You can sate your curiosity later. The students come first, yes?" The Charms master nodded begrudgingly and he and Minerva took their leave.

The Doll watched them go with a serene smile, and then strode smoothly around Dumbledore, stopping next to his throne to look out over the four massive tables that lined the Great Hall. A sea of young, expectant faces looked back at her, taking her in as their voices rose, supposition and rumor already flying between the students. Though classes would start soon, many were lingering in hopes of discovering just what that odd chime they heard earlier was, and no doubt many of them would connect that sound to the appearance of the strange woman in the Great Hall that day.

"I've never seen so many people in one place before." The Doll said in a quiet, wonder filled voice. Her hands moved to cover her heart as she smiled adoringly at the students, meeting each of their eyes as she swept her gaze from one side to the other. "Oh, it fills me with joy, and … something else." She paused, trying to find the right words as Dumbledore moved to stand beside her.

The students caught sight of him, and even from the very back of the Great Hall they could tell that he looked different. Those closest to the staff table were quick to figure out what had changed, and word spread like wildfire through the assembled students as whispers and shouts of "Dumbledore's young again!" echoed in the Great Hall.

She turned to him, tears shining in her silver eyes that refused to fall. "It feels as if a weight I did not know I carried has been lifted. Do you know what it means?"

"You said you were from the Dream, yes?" The Doll nodded. "Who else was in the dream with you?"

"Countless Hunters passed through the Dream over the years, but only Gehrman had been there from the beginning, guiding each new Hunter through their night and back to the Waking World."

"Gehrman was not very good company, I would wager." Dumbledore ventured a guess and was rewarded with an airy giggle from the Doll.

"No, he was not. He slept, fitfully, except for when he greeted the new Hunters, and towards the end, when his rest turned peaceful. He never spoke to me." She said this matter of factly, her smile never wavering despite the innate sadness in the words themselves. Her only constant companion over the years refused to speak to her? How awful! Albus' heart bled for the poor dear.

"Ah, I see." Albus began. "I think that you were lonely in the dream, and what you felt was that loneliness abating."

"Truly?" The Doll gave a quiet sigh as a single tear escaped and ran down her cheek. She wiped it away with a hand, the tear rolling down into her palm, where it stayed. Then, as Albus watched, the small drop expanded, coalescing into a small, smooth gemstone that shone from within with a faint silvery light.

The Doll held the stone up to examine it, and wistfully said, "Oh, I'm crying again. If only Harry were here to see it."

Several questions cried out in the Headmaster's mind, but he pushed them aside and focused on the most important one at the moment. "You know Harry?" Albus asked. He had suspected as much from the moment she appeared, but it is good to know rather than assume.

The Doll turned to regard him with a smile. "Of course. He was such a kind Hunter. Is he here?" She asked, excitement creeping into her melodic voice and bringing a definite light to her eyes.

"Why yes he is. He's in the Hospital Wing right now." The headmaster knew that this was a worrying statement; that it would likely be considered dramatic by many, but he couldn't help himself. He'd always had a thing for dramatics.

The Dolls posture did not change, but her smile fell away and her voice hardened. "Is he hurt? Take me to him."

Dumbledore nodded, "Of course." He said, motioning for her to follow him as he made his way around the staff table and out of the Great Hall. The students watched them with rapt attention, even as many of them realized that they were verging on being late and made hasty efforts to finish their breakfasts and pack their things. It was as they were passing the end of the Gryffindor table and Albus caught sight of a particular mop of red hair that he remembered why he had come back to the Great Hall to begin with.

The headmaster did not need to get the young man's attention. Indeed, he already had the full attention of the entire Great Hall.

"Mr. Weasley." He said in greeting to the gaping lad.

"Headmaster! You-you're young! What happened?" Every single student within earshot, and several that were not, leaned in to listen.

Dumbledore smiled and gestured at the Doll beside him. "That was all her, Mr. Weasley. I am not quite sure how she did it, but I am grateful nonetheless." The Doll smiled at him, inclining her head in acknowledgement of his thanks.

Ron looked the Doll over from head to toe, taking in her pale, porcelain appearance, and inverse eclipse eyes, and said, "Err, yeah. Good job." The Doll smiled pleasantly at him in response.

"Mr. Weasley," Albus waited for him to shift his attention before he continued. "Young Harry has been through quite the ordeal over the course of the night and is currently in the Hospital Wing." Ron's expression visibly darkened at that. "We were just on our way to see him. You are welcome to join us. I'll be sure to inform your professors not to count your absence against you."

Ron scowled. "No thanks Professor."

Both the Headmaster and the Doll frowned at him, but it was Albus who spoke. "Mr. Weasley, Harry needs his friends now more than ever. Put aside whatever ill has come between you two and do what is right."

But Ron only shook his head, muttering, "He got himself into it, he can bloody well get himself out."

The headmaster shook his head sadly at the boy. "I am disappointed in you, Mr. Weasley." The lad flinched at that, but turned back to his breakfast, dismissing them and any concern he had for Harry both.

Albus turned to the Doll, and was disconcerted to see the glare she had leveled at the back of Mr. Weasley's head.

"Let's go," he said. "Mr. Weasley has made his choice." The Doll nodded, and together they left the Great Hall to much buzz amongst the students.

"Harry is not hurt." He said as they passed through the doors of the Great Hall and turned in the direction of the Hospital Wing.

The Doll smiled, relieved. "Good. The thought of him being hurt is," She paused, once more seeking the appropriate word for how she is feeling. "Distressful."

Albus nodded. "Indeed, I don't like the thought any more than you do. I only asked him to go there for a quick check up with the school nurse, just to make sure that he was alright after his," Now it was the Headmaster's turn to search for an appropriate word. "Ordeal last night."

The Doll frowned at that. "The Last Hunt was long and arduous for them both. However, it is not his body that I worry for."

"I second that, Miss Doll." The Doll giggled at him, and he turned to her with furrowed brows. "What? What did I say?"

"I am a Doll, and you may call me as such, but it sounds so silly when you put 'Miss' in front of it." The Doll giggled again, one of her hands moving to cover her mouth as she did.

Albus regarded her curiously for a moment before asking, "Do you have a name?"

The Doll turned to him with shining eyes. "You are only the second human to ever ask me that."

"Who was the first?"

"Harry. He did not like my answer, and so he gave me a name." She looked at the tear stone still held in her hand for a moment before continuing. "Marie. My name is Marie."


	3. Mysteries Both Medical and Lunar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Albus gets a checkup. Harry and Hermione have a chat. Luna wonders why the Moon is acting differently than it should.

"Poppy, I assure you, I am fine."

The Matron did not listen, her constant stream of diagnostic spells not slowing in the slightest, and the cloud of colorful bubbles, charts, and shapes that floated around Albus' head continued to grow in size and complexity. With a long suffering sigh, the man who still thought himself old resigned himself to undergoing this battery of tests. He did not recognize all of the spells she used, but of those that he did, he could tell that he had a clean bill of health. Just why Poppy was being so fretful was beyond him!

The cleanest he'd had in fifty years, as a matter of fact. One particular lavender colored pyramid floating near his left temple caught his eye. He knew that that particular spell was intended to detect the lasting damage of blunt force trauma to the head, turning gray, starting at the top, in relation to the severity of the damage that even magic could not fix. Ever since he had returned from Grindelwald's fortress, the top sixth of the pyramid always registered gray, owing to a rather nasty knock he took from one of the unfortunate "patients" Gellert had had in his laboratory.

The entire pyramid was lavender once more. Just what was it that Marie had done to him? How could such an unassuming … woman? Doll?

Entity? Albus shivered as he remembered the sheer _scope_ of the consciousness of Marie the Doll. Never before had he come across a person with such a mind as hers.

Person.

He looked through the wall of Madame Pomfrey's office, charmed to act as a one way window to allow her to keep watch over her domain, at the Doll, kneeling at Harry's bedside. She held one of Harry's hands in both of her own, idly rubbing her thumb in soothing circles across the back of his hand as she conversed pleasantly with Miss Granger, who sat opposite her, Harry's other hand held in her own.

How could such an unassuming person hold such a power as to turn back the biological clock with a whim?

Harry himself was laid out in the Hospital bed, wrists and ankles strapped down with enchanted leather belts much like a mental patient. The sight of those belts had unsettled Albus so much that he had rushed into Madame Pomfrey's office with barely a greeting shared between him and Miss Granger. He hadn't even introduced her to Marie properly.

Out of curiosity, Albus activated the listening charm he had surreptitiously dropped on Harry before unknowingly walking into the full physical that awaited him in the Matron's office.

"You're an enchanted doll?" There was disbelief in Hermione's tone, but also unmistakable curiosity. The Doll tilted her head in thought, those moonlit eyes sparkling with amusement.

"In a manner of speaking: yes."

Hermione's brow furrowed in response. "What do you mean, 'in a manner of speaking'?"

The Doll smirked at the girl sat across from her. "Many Hunters have called me enchanting before. I do not think they meant it the same way you did." If it was possible, Hermione's brow furrowed even further in her confusion.

"How did they mean it then?" The Doll giggled at her. "What?"

"And they called _me_ innocent." Realization hit her, and Hermione ducked her head in embarrassment as her cheeks flushed pink.

"Oh!" Her gaze went to Harry's face, peaceful in the way that could only be brought on by Dreamless Sleeping potion, and couldn't help but wonder.

"So, did you and the Hunters?" She trailed off, unwilling to give voice to the thought. The Doll quirked one delicate, white brow at her.

"Yes? What were you going to ask?" Hermione shifted her focus back to the Doll and away from that train of thought.

"How do you know Harry?" She asked instead. The Doll's eyes softened, and she turned a wistful smile towards the unconscious boy.

"The same as you, Hermione." Hermione started at the use of her name. They hadn't been properly introduced yet, how did the Doll know her name? "He is," She paused to brush aside a lock of hair on Harry's forehead, her finger idly tracing his much faded lightning bolt scar. "My friend."

"How do you know my name?" She asked warily. The Doll regarded her with a kind smile that had Hermione relaxing almost immediately and completely against her common sense.

"Harry spoke of you often. His best friend, he said. The one that stuck by him no matter what. He missed you terribly." Hermione's heart warmed at that. Even after so many years, the old fears, from before Hogwarts and magic, still lingered, and she would find herself worrying whether Harry and Ron actually _cared,_ or if they only tolerated her because she helped them with homework. To know that Harry missed her when they were apart settled something in her that she didn't even _know_ was unsettled.

"He did?" The vulnerability in her own voice shocked her, so much so that she forcefully shifted her mind onto something else that had been bothering her rather than let the Doll answer the question.

"How long was he trapped in that Nightmare? He seems older now than he should be."

The Doll nodded. "The Hunt was long, longer than any that had come before. The Night stretched on into months." _Months!_ Hermione could hardly believe it. How was such a thing even possible? The Doll's hand alighted atop Harry's head, crimson whisps of energy rising out of him and swirling into her hand before sinking gently back into his head as she spoke.

"When he first came to me he was such a frail, tiny thing. Weak from years of malnourishment. Such an unbefitting form for a Hunter." The last was said almost teasingly, while Harry, who had been as pale as a ghost since that morning, began to take on a healthier pallor as color returned to his cheeks.

"But," The Doll continued. "His blood was already so strong. It sang with the echoes of his power. All it needed was a little guidance, and he was as he should have been all along." Harry's eyes fluttered, his arms stretching in their binds as consciousness slowly returned to him despite the potion Hermione _knew_ Madame Pomfrey had given him. The energy that flowed between the two of them did not slow, or peter out, it simply sank back into Harry with an abruptness that surprised Hermione.

"And if you doubt my word, then you can simply ask him yourself, Hermione." There was a strangely amused glint in the Doll's eye as she said this, almost like she _knew_ what she was thinking.

"Well Albus," The Matron's voice broke through Albus' concentration, the listening charm fading into indistinguishable noise in the back of his mind. "Somehow, against all logic and reason, you have a completely clean bill of health, and are, apparently, thirty years old despite date of birth charms still returning the correct date." She actually threw her hands in the air in exasperation as she said this, and he couldn't help but smile at her plight.

"Wonderful!" Albus said with aplomb. "Now, if we could focus on more pressing matters than my unfortunately good health?" His joviality drained away and was replaced with real concern when he continued, "How is Harry?"

Poppy sighed, but relented, moving to stand next to a table with a copy of Harry's medical chart and three vials of blood stood on it. Albus followed, glancing curiously at the blood but holding his tongue, knowing that Poppy would tell him their significance in time. Always thorough in her reports, Poppy was.

She picked up the chart, took a deep, fortifying breath, and then started to speak.

"Physically speaking, the boy is in near perfect health. Suffering from an incredible case of exhaustion upon his arrival; my scans indicated that he hadn't slept in well over three months, but that just isn't _possible_ , no matter what the scans say. No amount of potions or spells would let someone go that long without sleep."

Albus remembered what Marie had said, about how the Night had 'stretched on into months.' Was it possible this Nightmare Harry had had was actually something he experienced while awake? Or was it just so vivid and real that it precluded any actual rest from being obtained? Either way, time magic was involved in some way, and that was never a good sign.

The Matron continued. "The clothes he wore upon his admittance were tattered and bloodstained, and I expected him to be a physical wreck underneath, but to my surprise he didn't have a mark on him. Even some of the scars that I remember treating him for were gone."

He looked at his smooth, perfectly unblemished hands, and he knew how that came to be. "That must have been Marie's doing." He murmured, more to himself than anything else, but Poppy heard and, after a moment's consideration nodded her head and continued.

"However, no matter how well the body is healed, our magic remembers. With the right spell, you can reveal every wound a person has gotten in their life. Albus," she shook her head, disbelieving of what she was about to say he supposed. "He shouldn't be alive."

The Headmaster's brow furrowed, "What do you mean Poppy?"

"I mean that there wasn't a single inch of that boy that hadn't been lacerated, bruised, burnt, or worse. Merlin's Merciful-" She cut off what Albus suspected would have been a long and unprofessional rant. "If I didn't know any better I'd say that he's had his heart ripped out of him on no less than three occasions, been decapitated at least twice, and bifurcated in seven different directions, but that cannot be possible! No amount of magic could save anyone from such a terrible thing."

Albus turned back to the window, watching as Harry and Hermione had what must have been a very awkward chat judging by their body language, and wondered aloud. "Curiouser and curiouser, this mystery grows. But now is not the time for conjecture, what more do you know?"

She sighed and gestured to the three blood vials on her desk. "These are all from Harry. Asking for them is what sent him into a rage as far as I can tell." Albus quirked an eyebrow thoughtfully, but didn't comment. "I ran a litany of tests for all manner of diseases and curses, and they all came back negative, until I cast the Gishtil spell."

"I'm familiar with the spell. Invented by the Sumerians and thought lost until very recently." Albus didn't even know Poppy knew the spell; quite frankly he was impressed she had managed to master it so quickly after its publication.

"Precisely, and- well I'll let the results speak for themselves." She waved her wand in a complicated helix over a vial of Harry's blood, which immediately bubbled and smoked. The smoke rose up out of the beaker, forming what could almost be mistaken for a small, dark thundercloud the color of fresh blood.

"The cloud represents the health, mental wellbeing, and the status of the soul itself of whoever the blood came from, showing long acting curses and other ailments as currents that run through the cloud," Poppy explained.

"I think I see what has you so concerned," Albus intoned gravely. There was something, a magic unfathomable, glittering like starlight, crashing through his blood, ensnaring his mind, and warping his very soul. It vaguely resembles Lycanthropy, or perhaps it's more accurate to say that Lycanthropy vaguely resembles whatever is in Harry, like how a muddled and blurry picture might resemble someone you once knew, long ago.

"I've never seen or even _heard_ of anything like this before Headmaster. Lycanthropy only affects the physical directly, but this?" She shook her head, dumbfounded. "I wouldn't even know how to begin to treat this, if it can even _be_ treated!"

"Is it contagious?" The safety of the other students is paramount. He will do everything in his power to help, but if Harry's mere presence is a threat, then a quarantine might be what's best for everyone. At least until preventative measures or a treatment comes to light.

"Short of direct blood to blood contact, I don't believe so."

The Headmaster visibly sagged with relief. "Then our dear Harry is of no threat to the rest of the students."

"Perhaps not via contagion," The matron started, seizing Albus' full attention. "But he did attempt to attack me. He is in restraints for a reason."

"He has been through an ordeal, and as I understand it you had him trapped?" He peered at her over his half-moon spectacles until she nodded her head. "Then he felt he had no other choice. I rather doubt the other students will elicit such a reaction from him."

He switched topics before she could object further. "Send a sample of his blood, anonymously, to the Department of Mysteries for analysis. I will take the other. Perhaps I can divine the nature of this curse with further study."

Madame Pomfrey agreed without hesitation. "Of course! I dare say Headmaster, if anyone can shine some light on this mystery it would be you."

Albus smiled, though it didn't reach his eyes, "Thank you Poppy. Was there anything else?"

"Oh yes," she started, riffling through her pockets for a vial of the very same sedative Harry had taken in Albus's office. "Albus," she intoned gravely, shaking the vial for emphasis. "This isn't a potion. It's blood."

* * *

Harry's eyes fluttered open, and then shot to Hermione when she squeezed his hand.

"'Mione! What are you doing here?" He asked groggily, shaking his head to clear it of cobwebs.

"Well that's a silly question! As if I would be anywhere else than at my best friend's side right now." She admonished playfully. He smiled a wobbly smile, tears shining in his eyes.

"God I've missed you Hermione," he squeezed his eyes closed against the tears that were already leaking out. Hermione squeezed his hand reassuringly.

"I know Harry, I know." He looked at her, opened his mouth to say something, then stopped when he noticed the Doll holding his other hand.

"Marie!" He nearly shouted, startling Hermione. "What are - how - when did you get here?" He finally settled on.

Marie smiled fondly at him. "I only just arrived. Your Headmaster was kind enough to welcome me to Hogwarts. This place will make a lovely home." Harry smiled, but he looked somewhat put off by something Marie said, although Hermione had no idea what it could be.

"Oh! I almost forgot," she continued. "I had the little ones bring you something. You left it in the workshop. Very unlike you Harry." She knelt down, and Hermione and Harry both leaned forward to see what she was grabbing. Harry stopped almost immediately, eyes going wide, finally noticing the leather straps tying him down to the bed. Hermione saw, and, before he could panic, banished his bonds with a flick of her wand. He rubbed his wrist, sending her a grateful smile before turning back to Marie.

She held a bundle of pale grey cloth in her arms, the hilt of a sword sticking out of one end. She held the bundle out towards him, bowing her head almost reverently.

Harry visibly swallowed. "Is that…" His eyes darted from the bundle to Marie and back again.

Marie nodded, eyes shining. "Your Moonlight."

Harry took the bundle from her delicately. "I can't believe," he paused, shaking his head with a short laugh. "I thought I'd never need you again." Hermione wasn't sure if he meant the sword or Marie, but either way Marie smiled.

"What good is a Hunter without his weapon?" She asked, head canted to one side.

"Heh, not very lemme tell you," Harry muttered humorously before deftly unwrapping the blade and holding it aloft in front of him.

It was larger than Hermione expected, despite having seen how long the bundle was. It had to be almost as long as Harry was tall, with a hilt that looked like it could very easily accommodate a two handed grip. The blade looked almost like silver polished to a mirror finish, with some sort of fabric, gauze maybe? Wrapped haphazardly around the first half of the blade. Peeking out from under those wrappings were what looked like runes to Hermione's eye, albeit ones she didn't recognize.

"It's beautiful," she whispered. Harry looked at it for another moment, then sighed deeply, expression troubled. He set the blade aside, leaning it up against the nightstand next to Hermione. Marie stood surreptitiously and headed for the Madame's office. Hermione silently thanked the doll for giving them privacy.

"I'm sorry 'Mione."

Brows creased in confusion, Hermione asked him, "What for Harry?"

He barked out a laugh that sounded far too much like a sob for her liking. Then, he turned to her, and there was such a manic glint in his eye that Hermione felt a shiver of unease run up her spine.

"Too many things to count. If the universe was fair I'd not be here now."

"Don't talk like that Harry!" She admonished, but he continued as if she hadn't spoken.

"But, I guess I'm apologizing for how I've acted today. I've been a right berk, haven't I?" Just like that, the manic glint was gone and the Harry she knew and loved was back, self-deprecation and charming smile and everything. Hermione smiled, shaking her head at him.

"Harry, it's alright. I really didn't mind it truth be told." His brow shot up into his hairline.

"You didn't _mind it?_ "

"Well, _no_ , not really. If you remember, I even got into it a bit myself."

"Got into- 'Mione, what are you talking about?" That's when he saw the blush in her cheeks. "Oh, ah! The kiss, yeah." He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. "That's, well that's not what I meant, but now I know where your head's at." He shot her a smug smirk.

She slapped his shoulder, "Prat." But she couldn't hide her smile. For a moment, they looked at each other, smiling like fools. It was like nothing had even happened, Hermione thought, even as the subtle changes in her friend cried out saying that something most certainly had. There were faint wrinkles around his eyes, barely visible unless you stared at point blank range, and even now, in this moment of peace, she noticed his eyes darting off and around her, nervously taking in his environment. It was subtle, but it was there.

"How are you feeling?" She asked once the moment had stretched on long enough for her to feel a bit awkward. She immediately regretted the question when his smile faltered, then returned with obvious artifice behind it.

"I could really go for a cuppa and some scones to be honest." Except he wasn't being honest, not entirely, and they both knew it. Hermione patted his hand anyway.

"I'll get Dobby to bring you some."

For a time, they ate and sipped their tea in peace, before a niggling worry at the back of Hermione's mind got too big to ignore any longer.

"Harry?" He hmm'd, setting his tea down and giving her his full attention. "Did that kiss mean anything?" His brow furrowed, then smoothed out just as quickly.

"It was an oath." He said simply. Hermione gave him a questioning look, and he answered her unspoken question. "I won't lose you like I lost Evelyn," he said gravely. "That was a promise to keep you safe. No matter what."

"Oh," Hermione whispered, trying to tamp down on her disappointment. When she looked up, Harry had set his tea aside in favor of cleaning his sword. He had produced a rag and a bottle of oil from somewhere, and was meticulously wiping the blade down.

"What did, erm, Marie call your sword?" She had to stop herself from calling Marie an it, which would have been incredibly rude if she knew anything about etiquette. And she should, given how many books she's read on the subject. Harry smiled, never taking his eyes off his sword.

"My Moonlight. This blade is something special 'Mione. There's no other like it in all the world. Without it, well I'd be downright lost."

"Where did you get it?" He froze, eyes going wide. His hands started shaking, and Hermione cursed internally. "Harry, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked. Harry?" She touched his shoulder, and he gave a violent start, whipping around to pierce her with the fiercest expression she'd ever seen on him. She jumped back, just in case. The last time he'd looked like this he'd nearly attacked a teacher, and now he had a sword in his lap.

"Harry?" Tentatively, she reached out to him again, rubbing small circles into his shoulder with her thumb. "I'm sorry Harry. I promise, from here on out, no more prying. I won't ask about anything else." His glare subsided, and with a violent shake of his head he was seemingly calm again.

"You won't be able to keep that promise 'Mione." He intoned solemnly.

"I can try, and if I fail then you have no obligation to answer me. Just let me know what topics are off limits, and I'll stay far away from them, okay?"

"That's the "Mione I remember," Harry said fondly. "Always finding the best solution."

She squeezed his shoulder. "I try."

* * *

"Blood?" Albus's brow was furrowed in thought. "I wonder," He trailed off, then held his hand out for the vial of 'sedative.'

"I'd like to try something, if you don't mind, Poppy."

"Of course," she replied at once, handing him the vial without hesitation. It was oddly warm in his hand, as if the blood inside was freshly taken. He took it to the table and sat it next to the vials of Harry's blood, far enough away that it wouldn't interfere with the still active Gishtil cloud.

"If you would be so kind as to cast the Gishtil spell once more, on this 'sedative' of Harry's?" Poppy nodded her head, and did so, her wand once more twirling in a complex helix over a vial of blood. The strange, pale blood boiled and poured forth a tremendous cloud of equally pale smoke. Albus expected the smoke to spread out and become a massive, complex cloud, but it remained tight, dense. Nearly opaque, like the early morning fog on the moor, turning and turning in ever changing anti-clockwise patterns. Even so, he saw what he suspected he would.

"This blood carries the same curse Harry does, only far more advanced." He murmured to himself. Poppy said nothing at first, staring at the Gishtil cloud as all the blood drained from her face.

"That doesn't even look _human_." She whispered, appalled. "How am I supposed to- what kind of curse _is this?_ "

Albus wished he knew.

"Ahh, inquisitive minds, seeking the secrets hidden in blood." Marie smiled as she entered the matron's office. She glided across the room, right up to the two Gishtil clouds suspended in the air. They shuddered, twisting in place, drawn towards her. She raised a hand to the sedative cloud, whisps of crimson seeping out of her to intertwine with the ever shifting patterns of the cursed cloud. It stilled, frozen in place as Marie regarded it, head tilted curiously, a gentle smile on her porcelain lips.

"You have lived a hard life, haven't you?" She murmured to the cloud. Albus was about to explain to her that the cloud wasn't itself alive, and was merely a reflection of the one the blood came from at the time the blood was taken, but the cloud _rippled_ and bobbed in the air in a way that was obviously agreement.

Albus's words dried up in his throat.

"Rest now, unfortunate one. Find peace in the waking world." The tendrils of energy that Marie had released into the cloud withdrew, and the moment they were all returned to her did the cloud evaporate as if it had never been there.

The vial, which had once been full with the strangely thick, white blood, was now empty. That wasn't supposed to happen when the Gishtil spell ended, Albus knew that.

Marie turned to the Gishtil cloud of Harry's blood, and her soft smile grew fond, a note of excitement creeping into her normally placid voice.

"Oh Harry! Look at how much you've grown." She reached out, but this time instead of her magic seeping into the cloud, the cloud seeped into _her_. Draining away into her hand seemingly of its own will until only an empty vial was left behind.

She held her hand to her heart, as if cradling something precious.

"Evelyn will be proud of you, just as I am."

"I think that anyone that knows Harry, and knows what he has overcome in his short life, would be proud of him." Albus interjected, not entirely sure what to make of what he just witnessed, but decidedly unwilling to dwell on it. At the moment, at least. The amount of time he'll be spending in his pensieve in the near future, reviewing events, well.

He's glad his body is young again, because he won't be getting much sleep.

She turned a bright smile his way, but said nothing.

"Miss Marie," Madame Pomphrey started. "Would you mind too terribly if I gave you a physical?" Albus straightened, wondering why the idea hadn't occurred to him to have the matron look The Doll over. They could learn a great deal about her nature, unless, he realizes with a certainty that ends his brief excitement for discovery, she reacts in much the same inscrutable fashion as the lamp in the Great Hall did.

Marie, meanwhile, was giving the matron a curious look. "What do you hope to find by studying me?"

"Well, to be frank, I have no idea." Poppy replied plainly.

Marie regarded the matron silently for a long moment. Albus swore he felt something, some sort of magic, ephemeral as the moon on a cloudy night, pass over the room and through him, right down to his bones. The sensation sent a chill down his spine.

"Nothing invasive, yes?" Marie inquired, and the Matron was quick to assure her. "Very well. I am curious what you will learn."

Poppy launched into the same exhaustive battery of diagnostics that she had used on Albus earlier, but the results were decidedly more … _mixed._ Date of birth charms returned a series of symbols that neither he nor the matron knew the meaning of on first cast, then a date that was decidedly in the future on the second, then reacted as if cast on an inanimate object on the third. The first time she cast the age determination charm it returned a number so mind-bendingly _large_ that she cast it again, convinced it had been a mistake on her part.

The second casting returned an even larger number, the third insisted that Marie was negative one-hundred and eighty six years of age, and Poppy gave up on determining Marie's age as a bad job.

Albus had never even _heard_ of that spell returning a negative number, not even on miscasts.

"How old are you, Marie?" Albus inquired, not as quick to give up as the Matron. Marie took on a thoughtful expression, one finger tapping against her other hand where they sat, crossed in front of her. He could hear the faint _click click click_ that she made as she did it.

"I've never thought about it. Time doesn't have the same meaning in the Dream as it does in the Waking World." Then, she shrugged and gave him an apologetic look, and Albus also gave it up as a bad job.

Spells meant to determine the health and wellbeing of a patient either failed to work in their entirety or threw up drastic warnings, insisting that Marie was very much dead. It would seem that Marie has no heartbeat, and that is a rather large red flag to most every diagnostic spell ever invented.

Who knew?

Yet, a spell meant to determine if there were any issues with blood flow in the body, highlighting the body in green where blood flow was healthy and red where it was not, showed green across the board. No heart, and yet blood, or something like it, flows through her.

When she cast a spell to check brain activity, usually used to determine if head trauma had caused irreparable damage, the glowing pyramid it summoned was so blindingly bright that they both cried out, covering their eyes with their arms to blot out the miniature sun that had just erupted into being near Marie's head.

Albus could feel the heat of it on his skin the same as he could the midday sun on a clear day in the middle of winter.

"Cancel the spell!" Albus shouted, and a moment later the heat and light of that little pyramid was gone. They both lowered their arms, blinking away spots in their vision.

Marie was giving them both concerned looks, hands clasped delicately in front of her.

"We are fine, Marie. That spell is not usually so bright as that, is all." He reassured her as well as he could, waving his hand dismissively even as spots danced across his vision.

"Indeed not," Poppy added. "I think that's enough of that for today." She waved her wand, banishing the remnants of her other diagnostics.

"Did you learn anything?" Marie inquired, head canted to one side curiously. Poppy just pursed her lips and shook her head. A twinkle, something like knowing and being greatly amused by it, shone in The Doll's eyes as she hummed thoughtfully.

"Yes, I thought not." She's definitely amused by their confusion, Albus knows it, and he had to fight against his own smile at her amusement. "If you will excuse me."

Albus nodded his farewell, and watched as Marie made her way out of the office and back to Harry's side. She kneeled across from Hermione, forgoing a chair entirely and yet still able to look down on the girl across from her despite the latter being sat in a chair. She took his hand in her own, smiling serenely at him as something passed from her and into him. Was that the Gishtil cloud she had absorbed earlier? Was she returning his lost blood to him?

Curious indeed.

Now, just when did Harry get out of his restraints? No matter, Albus thinks, secretly relieved to see the ghastly things gone from the young man. He needs to have faith in the boy. Especially around those he cares about.

"I want a full report of everything we've done and discussed today, along with anything else you might learn for the rest of the day, on my desk by tomorrow evening." He instructed without looking at Poppy.

"Of course, but Albus, I don't even know where to _begin_ with- with _any_ of this."

"I understand. Focus on the facts first, leave your theories for the end, and leave no theory, no matter how ridiculous it may seem at first, out."

She nodded her agreement, then added: "I'll be keeping him overnight, at the very least, for observation."

"Very good. No more restraints unless _absolutely_ necessary, I hope?" He gave her an expectant look, waiting for her defiance to melt away under his stare. It took less than ten seconds.

* * *

The moon was full again, Luna noticed late that night.

The alcove she was lounging in was one of her favorites. Far off and away from Ravenclaw tower, most of the way down an otherwise abandoned corridor on the mostly unused sixth floor, only accessible by going down a staircase hidden behind an empty bookcase on the second floor. Only the most curious or most adventurous or the truly lost found their way here.

Luna hummed a tune that had come to her the previous night, in a dream, as she wondered which of those she was.

She's in Ravenclaw, but the hat had well and truly considered putting her in Gryffindor, so either of the first two would surely fit her. The last?

Luna had been locked out of Ravenclaw tower again. A ward spell this time, tuned specifically to her radish earrings. They'd explode if she crossed the threshold, whether or not she had them on. Sue Li's work. It would be impressive if it didn't hurt so much.

At least now she knows why her earrings remained despite all her footwear and underthings disappearing that morning. The earrings were usually the first thing to disappear.

"An outcast is not lost, so long as they know where they are." She looked out the window again; noted that the moon was still full. Her eyes hadn't deceived her earlier.

Perhaps she doesn't know where she is after all. The moon had been full every night for the last week, had even been blood red on Halloween night, and Luna was fairly sure that that should not happen. She squinted at the moon, nose scrunching up as she focused.

"The moon should not be growing larger, either, methinks."

She continued humming her dream tune, shrugged her shoulders, and decided that just because she was lost, and the world wasn't acting how it should, doesn't mean she can't still be an adventurous explorer, following her curiosity bravely wherever it may lead!

She stood on the plush loveseat she'd been reclining on, opened the window, and stuck her head out as far as she could.

"Why are you acting weird, Namesake mine?" She asked the moon as politely as she would ask a professor; not really expecting an answer but happy to be listened to regardless.

Something moved in her upper periphery, and she tilted her head back as far as she could to get a look. Several long tentacles, about as thick a piece as she was at her thinnest point and more than twice as long as she was tall, waved gently just above her head. She couldn't see what they were attached to, so she twisted around, until she was hanging most of the way out of the window and looking straight up. One of her hands ended up holding the window sill above her, while the other braced on the sill to her left.

The tentacles were attached to a faceless head, more of a bonework lattice containing a fleshy sac really, which was itself attached to a vaguely humanoid body. If humans had six -no, make that seven- gangly arms, two equally thin legs, and were really more like if someone attempted to become a spider without ever having seen one before.

Oh, and were a fair bit larger than a giant. So, if a giant attempted to become a spider without ever having seen one before, and really is that so hard to believe? Spiders are such frighteningly small creatures. Compared to a giant they may as well be invisible!

"Hello!" Luna chirped at the great spider-like creature clinging to the side of Hogwarts. It's head shifted in her direction, and what she took at first to be a simple sac revealed itself to be a truly unusual number of eyes, glowing a dull yellow, all packed in tight together like a tapioca pudding.

For several long moments they stared at each other. The creature's eyes blinking seemingly at random and in no way in unison, while Luna observed it unblinkingly, smiling serenely. After a time, for no reason Luna could articulate, she moved her arms as smoothly as she could, so her right hand moved from the top sill to the right, and her left ended where her right began. It moved closer then, it's many eyes focusing squarely on her.

"I'm Luna Lovegood, do you have a name?" She asked the many eyed head now less than a foot away from her own.

The creature emitted a sound that was at once a screech, a hiss, a bass rumble, and a scream, yet was none of them at the same time. It rocked her head back as if she had been punched, her eyes somehow going even wider than they already were. A buzzing took root in her ears, like tinnitus, but after a moment it resolved itself into the ringing of a faraway bell, high and beautiful. A word coalesced in her mind, and she knew it wasn't exactly a _name_ , but the closest thing this creature had to one.

"Amygdala," She chimed. It blinked at her in unison, which she took as confirmation. "What brings you here, Amygdala?"

Amygdala's head swiveled, it's eyes refocusing on the night sky. Luna followed their gaze, and noted that the moon was still full. She looked back at her many eyed companion, and it met her gaze with all of its own.

"The moon brought you here?" They made that odd noise that isn't quite a hiss or a screech or a bass growl or a scream, and yet was also all at once. She was ready for it this time, but even so, it rocked her head back and sent a shudder down her spine. Her eyes vibrated in their sockets, and she wanted to close them, but then she snapped her head back up, the moon hanging bright and beautiful and too large in the night sky.

A shape coalesced in her mind's eye, superimposed over the moon. Two crescents of slightly different size, one above the other, not quite touching, a diamond, wider than it is tall, in the center of them and the moon, all struck through with a single vertical line.

She let her head fall back, seeing the ground so very far below her not disorienting in the least, even as she dangled most of the way out of a window so very far in the air.

"A rune," she murmured, slightly dazed. A rune for the Moon herself! Just like Mother always said there was. She shook herself, and gave Amygdala a truly happy smile. "Thank you for talking to me, but I really should be getting some sleep now. Have a good night, Amygdala."

Their multitude of eyes blinked at her as one, and she took it as a farewell, ducking back into the window and arranging herself on the loveseat as comfortably as she could.

Her bed would really be preferable, not to say that the loveseat was in any way uncomfortable, but it was a slight bit too narrow. Since Luna preferred to sleep on her stomach, her arm would inevitably end up hanging off the edge to rest on the floor, which just invites all kinds of mischief from too many creatures to count.

Ah well, nothing to be done for it.

Unless Amygdala had any ideas on how to get her back into Ravenclaw Tower?

She was just about to poke her head out and ask when she heard footsteps coming down the hall towards her little alcove. She tilted her head curiously as she listened, then poked her head out into the corridor instead.

It was a woman. Tall and regal, a bonnet on her head of shockingly white hair, with a simply massive hooded shawl draped over her corseted dress. Luna had heard the rumors, whispered loudly between Lavender Brown and a handful of the more gossipy Hufflepuffs during dinner. That this woman had appeared in the Great Hall, heralded by the sound of bells, and somehow made the Headmaster a young man again before ensconcing herself in the hospital wing, where Harry Potter was supposedly stuck himself, for the rest of the day.

Looking at her now, Luna believed it. She looked like an angel come to earth to enjoy a nice stroll. She wonders, is the angel brought here by curiosity, bravery, or is she yet another lost soul, seeking solitude when companionship is denied to them?

"Hello," She says airily, still just a head poking out of an alcove to her visitor.

The woman hadn't seemed to notice her, preoccupied with examining the portrait of Radigan the Rapacious, but she didn't seem surprised in the least to be addressed either. She turned to Luna, hands crossed daintily in front of herself, and smiled a smile that Luna found shockingly familiar. The same one she sees in the mirror; airy and serene, as if nothing did or even could bother her in that moment. Content, in a way.

A kindred spirit, then.

"Hello, young one." She glided up to the alcove, and Luna bounced down off her perch to meet her. She peered up at the much taller woman, really taking in her porcelain appearance, almost doll-like in its perfection. She swept her eyes surreptitiously down from her head to her toes, and noticed that her fingers were segmented at the joints - also just like a doll.

Her gaze returns to the woman's face and is caught immediately by her eyes. Silver ringed in black. Two inverse eclipses of shining Moonlight. For an instant, that same rune that she had spied before flashed before her, but the crescents were nestled within each other rather than opposite each other.

How very interesting, this visitor in the night!

"Are you lost?" Luna asks her, unblinkingly.

"No, I know exactly where I am." The doll woman replies easily, seemingly unphased by their prolonged eye contact.

"I am!" Luna chirps, pirouetting on the spot, arms out, before falling gracelessly into her loveseat.

"Is that why you are not in your dormitory? You could not find your way?" She sounded genuinely concerned, and it warmed Luna's heart to hear such plain concern for her in someone's voice.

"No," She answered thoughtfully, gaze drawn to the window, and the ever full and growing moon beyond. "The world is just different now."

Her visitor perched herself on the loveseat next to her, looking once to the moon then letting her gaze settle on Luna herself. She felt that gaze like a favorite blanket in her blood, comforting in its weight and heft.

"What was it like before?" She inquired, head tilted curiously.

Luna hummed thoughtfully, tracing that rune, both versions of it, one after the other, over the moon with her eyes as she considered the question. Each time she traced the rune in her mind, it grew sharper, more pronounced, easier and easier to recall until she knew that she would see it whenever she closed her eyes.

"Is it odd that I can't remember? I know it was different, but I couldn't tell you how." She turned to her visitor, eyes wide and searching. The woman smiled softly, shaking her head.

"Perhaps you're merely seeing things for how they always were for the first time?" She whispered as if sharing some wonderful, terrible secret. A fundamental truth of the universe itself, laid out in front of her just like that, to do with as she willed.

Luna cocked her head, thought for a moment, then smiled brightly, and nodded her head decisively.

"Yes! Yes, I do believe that's it! Thank you - oh! I didn't ask your name." She finished somewhat bashfully - for her, anyway.

"Marie. And you are?" Marie the doll woman smiled pleasantly, even as that rune Luna had glimpsed in her eyes flashed through her mind, brighter and sharper than ever, as she spoke her name. Opposing crescents means Moon, nestled crescents means Marie?

No, not just _Marie_. _This_ Marie, the Lady Doll herself.

"Luna Lovegood, although my classmates tend to call me Looney."

Marie hummed thoughtfully. "It is a lovely name, for a lovely lost little explorer." Luna giggled at that, and Marie joined her, covering her mouth with one hand as she did.

"Why do your classmates call you Looney?" Marie asked as their giggles died down.

"You don't know?" Luna blinked at her, surprised, but she shook her head so she explained. "They think I'm weird, unusual, crazy. They don't like me much." She said matter of factly, trying to be unbothered by her peers' harsh judgement of her.

Marie, on the other hand, made no attempt to hide her displeasure, frowning deeply and openly.

"Brilliance and wisdom are indistinguishable from madness to the blind and ignorant. They will see things as you do, in time." Luna smiled, appreciative of Marie's efforts to cheer her up. In her head she knows Marie is right, but the head and the heart don't always agree, and her heart doesn't seem to want to listen to reason on this matter.

"Now, let's get this lost explorer back to her dorm so she can get some rest." Marie announced, rising to her feet and holding out a hand for the young girl to take. She did so, letting their fingers intertwine as she popped up and led them back towards Ravenclaw Tower.

"For a doll, you're rather warm." Luna pointed out. Marie chuckled lightly in response.

"You see more than most humans." She replied.

"That's because I rarely blink!" Luna said in a sing-song voice before giggling madly at her own joke. Her giggles transitioned into happily humming her dream song, and Marie turned to her, surprised, pleasantly so, for the first time Luna had seen.

"Ah, Mergo's Lullaby! Where did you learn it?" She wondered.

Luna shrugged carelessly. "It came to me in a dream."

Her companion hummed, a thoughtful and happy sound. "Of course it did. How silly of me."

Luna took to skipping to keep pace with Marie's impressive stride, humming her lullaby all the while. They reached the entrance to Ravenclaw Tower in short order, the golden eagle knocker spitting out a riddle for them to solve.

"What is always in front of you but can't be seen?"

"The secrets of the Cosmos." Marie replied without hesitation.

"That is … not the answer I expected, but an acceptable one nonetheless. You may enter." The door swung open, and Luna frowned as she remembered.

"Someone put up a ward to keep me out." She could see it; a faintly visible, shimmering wall of pale violet light. Sue Li hadn't put any real effort into making the ward undetectable. No, Luna suspected she wanted her and everyone else to know it was there, and who it was locking out.

"What a petty use of their strength." Marie chastised disappointedly. She waved her hand and the ward disintegrated obediently. Luna cheered internally at how _easily_ Marie dismantled a ward that had honestly been beyond her ability to deal with.

This wasn't the first time they'd tried this, and she had always found a way through or around their wards, but not this time. Sue Li had clearly hit the books pretty hard to manage what she did, and Marie tore it down like she was batting away an old cobweb.

They stepped through into the common room, and Luna watched Marie take it all in with a fascinated glimmer in her eye. The Ravenclaw common room was a hexagonal space, lined with floor to ceiling bookshelves, lit by tabletop candles and a massive, elaborate chandelier. At this time of night the chandelier was unlit, leaving the space dimly, yet comfortably, lit solely by the tabletop candles. Here and there were desks, tables, comfortable armchairs, and the occasional couch. A single door on the far wall from the entrance led to a winding staircase. Heading down, you would find the boy's dormitories, heading up; the girls. Each floor was another year group, with the eldest students nearest the middle. Luna, being a third year, was four floors up.

"This way, Marie." She pulled the taller woman along behind her excitedly, across the room and up the stairs to her dorm. If asked, Luna wouldn't be able to say why exactly she was excited, but her excitement must have been infectious, because Marie followed eagerly, smiling almost adoringly down at the girl holding her hand.

Her and her yearmates dorm room was just like all the others: hexagonal like the common room, with beds spaced along the edges so that each one would have their own window, except for one lone bed right smack in the center of the room. This one was, of course, Luna's. She went to her bed, Marie right alongside her, and plopped right down on the edge of the bed.

"This is my dorm." She whispered dramatically, throwing her arms wide to encompass the space. Marie giggled softly and joined her on the bed.

"Oh! The bed is so soft," she murmured, one hand pressing down into the soft, downy pillow top that Luna preferred to have on her bed.

"Mhm!" Luna threw herself back onto the bed, trying her best to burrow backwards into the plush softness of it. Marie followed suit, in a much slower, more dignified manner, and let out a pleased sigh.

"It's lovely. I had no idea beds would be so comfortable." She hummed happily, turning her head to meet Luna's surprised stare.

"You've never slept in a bed before?" Marie shook her head, unbothered by this travesty. "Would you like to?"

"I think I would." She smiled serenely. "Perhaps I can use one of the free ones in the Hospital Wing."

"Oh no," Luna started gravely. "You wouldn't want to do that. The beds in the Hospital wing are dreadful things. Far too rigid and unpleasant. Oh no, no they wouldn't do at all. Besides!" She chirped. "You can stay here with me! It'll be like a sleepover, and I haven't had one of those since Mother died."

She beamed at Marie, practically begging her to agree with her eyes. Marie seemed sad for a moment, but then her expression melted into something utterly soft and adoring.

"Very well." She agreed, and although her words might not have sounded very enthused otherwise, her smile, and the hint of excitement in her voice made Luna squeal from her own excitement.

"Yay! Oh, we need to get changed into our sleeping clothes before we go to bed!" She declared, jumping up out of bed and going 'round to the foot of her bed, and her trunk.

"Sleeping clothes?" Marie inquired, sitting up to get a better look at what Luna was doing.

"Mhm! You can't go sleeping in your day clothes, that's just not done." She answered as she dug around in her trunk for her own sleepwear. "They get all wrinkly and smelly, and even magical pads aren't perfect, so you might bleed on them through the night if it's that time of the month, and no one would want that." Nevermind that a doll like Marie probably doesn't even get a period, it's still a good point and Luna is sticking with it.

"I don't have any sleeping clothes." Marie admitted, a bit sheepishly.

"You don't?" Luna stopped to blink at her. "Well, I might have something that will fit you. You're not _that_ much bigger in the hips than I am, soooo here!" She tossed a pair of sky blue sleeping shorts at Marie, who snatched them deftly from the air before they even got close to her. Next was a maroon tank top that, admittedly, wouldn't exactly _fit_ the taller woman, but should be comfortable enough to sleep in, which she caught as easily as the shorts.

"I think those will do for tonight." She nodded decisively. Marie looked at the clothes in her hands with something like wonder, tears shimmering in her eyes, and Luna worried desperately that she might have insulted the poor woman somehow.

"Thank you, Luna. I awoke in these clothes I wear now, so long ago, and have never worn any others." Her voice was quiet, almost small, but so heartfelt that Luna felt the prick of tears in her own eyes. She came around the bed and wrapped the woman up in a tight hug. Marie's own arms came around her lightly, delicately, almost as if she was afraid of breaking her.

How ironic that the porcelain woman should fear breaking the young witch!

"We'll have to take you clothes shopping at some point. Let you experience the wonders of magical fashion!" Luna gushed, happy beyond words to have been able to introduce something new and fun to someone as kind as Marie.

"You are too kind, my little Luna." Marie murmured into her hair, and Luna felt that sensation again, like when she was talking to Amygdala but only much, much subtler. She blinked, and yet another rune showed itself faintly, as if it had yet to attain full definition. Similar in shape to the previous two, except this one had both crescents nestled into each other on top rather than down below, and the line had turned to strike through sideways rather than vertically.

It took her breath away, because despite how faint it was, despite how it seemed to almost lack definition that the previous two had, she knew that it was _her_ rune. It was everything she is, was, and would ever be, captured in one beautiful, elegant symbol.

It may well be the best gift Luna had ever been given in her entire life!

"Oh, it's beautiful." She breathed, trying her hardest to stamp that rune into her memory forever and ever.

"You saw it?" Marie asked, and Luna nodded her head into the doll's shoulder. "I thought you would. It's only as beautiful as you are, my little Luna." She cooed, and the rune flashed in Luna's mind again, clearer, sharper, more defined than the last time. She had to bite her lip to keep herself from letting out a sob from the overwhelming mix of joy and amazement that welled in her heart. She held Marie tighter instead, and the doll reciprocated, and they just held each other in silence until Luna was sure she could pull away without crying.

"Let's get changed and lay down." She said, fighting back a yawn, and idly wondering what time it was.

"As you wish." Marie smiled, standing and removing her bonnet and then her shawl, laying them both reverently on Luna's bedside table. Luna turned around, quickly shucking her outer robes and the yellow dress she wore underneath it, wondering for a moment when her underthings would turn up - and where - then stepping into her own sleeping pants, and finally pulling on a silver tank top of her own.

She turned back around, now in her pajamas, and found Marie contemplating the tank top she had been given. Completely naked. Her dress, she noted, was folded and placed on top of the rest of her clothes on Luna's bedside table. For a doll, she was remarkably anatomically correct, from what Luna could see. Almost obsessively so. Her major joints were segmented, just like her fingers, just like an articulated doll used as a reference for drawings, but as she shrugged her shoulders and threw the tank top on over her head, backwards, Luna noticed with a giggle, parts of her that should not be able to bend _did._

It was only then, in the dark of the dorm room, with nothing between her gaze and Marie's porcelain skin, that Luna realized that Marie was softly glowing. A pale, unearthly moonglow that did almost nothing to light up her surroundings, but was breathtakingly beautiful.

She wondered, once again, if Marie might not be an angel.

"You're putting that on backwards, silly." Luna teased. Marie looked down at herself, huffed, and turned the shirt around before looking at Luna expectantly.

"Much better!" She chirped approvingly. That shirt only _just_ reached her own waist when she wore it, and on Marie's larger frame, stretched tight across her larger bosom? It barely reached past her ribs.

Marie picked up the shorts, eyed them speculatively, then held them up in front of her in question. Luna nodded happily, and Marie smiled as she slipped them on. They were tighter on her than on Luna, that was for sure, but not so much so that the elastic was at risk of being worn out.

"Comfy?"

"I am. The air feels good on my skin. Cool and soothing." Marie giggled daintily.

"Good!" Luna threw the covers back and threw herself into bed, scooting over to the far edge and patting the empty spot next to her. "Climb on in and lay down next to me, and discover the wonders of a good night's sleep in a soft, warm bed!"

Marie slid in between the covers, her legs, smooth as porcelain and as warm as any other person Luna could remember touching, sliding along her own. Luna threw the covers over them, burying them in her plush comforter up to their chins.

Then, without thinking about it, she wound her arm around Marie's waist and laid her head on her shoulder.

"Mmm, see? Isn't this nice?" She asked coyly. Marie's eyes glimmered in the darkness, clearly amused.

"Indeed it is." Marie wormed her arm under and around Luna, pulling her closer. "Sleep now, my Luna. You have a long day of class ahead of you." Luna hummed contently, and let her eyes drift shut.

Just as she drifted off, she noticed that Marie smelled like Moonlight, and she wondered how such a thing was even possible.

* * *


	4. Classes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry returns to class. Albus seeks out Marie for a discussion. Junior Auror Nymphadora Tonks is given a new assignment.

"Are you sure you want to go back to class so soon? You know Professor Dumbledore said to take as long as you need." Hermione fretted as they left the hospital wing early wednesday morning.

"It's like I told the Headmaster: I need to be _doing something_. I can't stand just sitting in here with nothing but my own thoughts to occupy myself." With a sigh, she had to admit that he was right. Harry was, and likely always _will_ be, a man of action.

Keeping moving is probably the only thing that got him through the Nightmare.

He's back in his Hogwarts uniform, which he had to have tailored by the house elves, much to her chagrin. She has to admit, he's both rather dashing and also incredibly uncomfortable looking in his uniform now.

"I miss my hunting attire." He sighed, running his hands over his robes in an attempt to remove whatever imperfection he saw in them. Brushing away imaginary lint, no doubt. A nervous habit. She grabbed his hands to stop their fretting.

"But why? It was all ragged and torn, and it smelled something foul." Her nose wrinkled as she remembered the scent of stale blood and sweat that clung to Harry the previous day. He smelled much better now, like clean linens and - she took a deep breath, trying to discern the scent of him, and all that came to mind was the full moon on a clear night.

"I didn't notice any smell." Of course he didn't. "And besides, I miss 'em more for what they had stored in them than anything else."

"The Headmaster gave you special permission to carry your sword around with you, that's got to count for something." She pointed out. Indeed, his Moonlight was strapped to his back in an elaborate sheath that he had produced from Merlin knows where. He sighed again, nodding his agreement.

"Still doesn't change the fact that I feel unprepared, _naked_ , without the rest of my gear." That he felt the need to be prepared for a life threatening scenario in _Hogwarts_ of all places - wait, no that doesn't really surprise Hermione in the slightest when she thinks about, and isn't it all the more tragic for it? He shook his head rapidly, banishing his worries and doubts before her very eyes.

"I'll get over it. Breakfast?"

And so they went about their day. It was, dare she say it, almost _normal_.

If she ignored how plainly paranoid Harry had become.

He flinched, _hard_ , at the cacophony of noise that was the Great Hall at the height of breakfast. He ate little, guzzled down a goblet of water, then spent the rest of breakfast fidgeting and twitching at the littlest thing. Yet, whenever she or anyone else spoke to him he gave them an easy grin and conversed almost as if nothing was wrong.

He got plenty of looks for having an actual sword strapped to his back, and Seamus even had the temerity to ask him directly about it, but Harry just shrugged, said the Headmaster gave him permission, and ignored anyone that asked him why.

He also flat out refused to show anyone his sword, which Hermione found oddly charming, in an overly responsible sort of way. A sword isn't a toy, and he really shouldn't be going around showing it off like it was.

Midway through breakfast, the Headmaster himself, who had been conspicuous in his absence at the head table, ambled into the Great Hall. He scanned it over with a little smile pulling at his old man whiskers, eyes all a twinkle as they alighted upon herself and Harry. He made his way over to them.

"Good morning again Harry, Miss Granger." He nodded to them in turn, and Hermione noticed that his eyes seemed even more blue than she remembered, vibrant with the energy of youth, same as the rest of him.

Well, except for his beard and hair.

"Good morning, Headmaster." Hermione replied. Harry uttered a simple: "Morning," with a slight but genuine smile, still clearly on edge but happy to converse with the genial not-old-but-technically-still-old-man.

"I must say, Headmaster, you make for an even odder sight than normal with your youthful complexion and old man whiskers." Hermione pointed out without really meaning to, immediately blushing and ducking her head. Harry nearly spit his water out trying not to laugh.

The Headmaster chuckled, one hand stroking his beard thoughtfully. "I must admit, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror this morning, and you may be right, Miss Granger."

The Headmaster flicked his ivory wand lazily, and a privacy bubble took shape around the three of them, the sounds of the rest of the Great Hall fading away, and the weight of her classmates stares, that Hermione hadn't consciously noticed until they were gone, faded as well.

"Harry," He started in a low, serious tone. "I just wanted you to know that I understand how difficult things will be for you in the coming days, and that there is no shame in it if you should need a break, or time to yourself, or even a calming draught from Madame Pomphrey, you understand?"

Harry visibly swallowed, opened his mouth, closed it again, decided words were too difficult, and nodded his head solemnly. He meant it, he wasn't just saying it, and Hermione was so proud of him for it.

"Good lad!" The Headmaster beamed at him. "Remember that my door is always open to you. Both of you." He clasped them each by the shoulder. "You both have my unwavering support. And Harry?"

He took Harry in both hands, and Hermione thought for a moment he was about to hug him, but he just held him there, under his newly intensified stare for a moment.

"Never forget that - no matter what may come - I am, and always _have been_ , proud of you, my boy."

Harry, misty eyed and on the verge of tears, reached out to clasp the Headmaster in a manly embrace.

"Thank you, Headmaster. I'll - well, I'll do everything I can to keep making you proud."

The Headmaster chuckled, ruffled Harry's hair, and stepped away. "Just keep being you, my boy. That's all I ask. Have a good day, both of you."

He turned as if to leave, then muttered a short: "Oh!" Before turning back to them.

"Would either of you know where Marie is?" They both shook their heads. Hermione had wondered at the Doll's absence that morning, but Harry hadn't seemed bothered by it when she asked, so she'd tried not to be either.

"If you go looking for her, she'll find you. She has a way of always being there when you need her." Harry put in. The Headmaster brightened, thanked him, and wished them both a good day again.

With that, he swept away to the head table, the privacy bubble dissipating in his wake.

They looked at each other, smiled, and went back to their breakfasts. Well, Hermione went back to her bowl of fruit and porridge and Harry fidgeted as he made small talk with those around him.

Hermione, for one, was heartened to know that they had the Headmaster's support, but she had a feeling that what he had said meant a lot more to Harry than he let on.

The day was off to a good start, as far as she was concerned.

Right as they were leaving, Ron passed them on his way to breakfast. He glared at Harry, but all he got was a vaguely confused stare in return.

"What's his problem?" He asked her as they made their way to DADA. Hermione huffed and rolled her eyes.

"He's likely still being utterly _ridiculous_ about your name coming out of the Goblet of Fire. As if anyone with two brain cells to rub together would really believe that you cheated your way into that death trap of a tournament. I mean, _honestly!_ "

Harry stumbled, stopping to lean one hand on a suit of armor while the other clutched at his temple.

"Harry?" She stopped as well, turning to him worriedly. His face was pinched as if in pain, his gaze distant and flitting, unseeing even as it flew all around him, searching his memories more than his surroundings.

"I forgot." He whispered.

"What?"

"I forgot all about _all_ of that! The tournament, our argument, my life being in danger _still_ , I - fuck 'Mione, I didn't even _recognize_ him." His voice was small, devastation writ across his face as plainly as the words in a textbook.

"Oh, Harry." She wrapped him up in a hug, and he clung to her with a desperation that was starting to become heartbreakingly familiar.

"It's, well it's been a long time for you, hasn't it?" She asked softly, gently.

"Too long." He breathed out shakily.

"Then you can be forgiven for your memory not being as sharp as it otherwise would be. That was all just the other day for us, but not for you. Don't be too hard on yourself." Encouragement dripped from her lips, and it felt like poison to her panicking heart.

If Harry had forgotten all of that, what else might he have forgotten? Had the Nightmare done something to his memories of before? Dear Merlin, she really hoped not.

He remembered _her_ after all, and that has got to count for something.

"I suppose you're right," he grumbled as he pulled away, holding her at arm's length. "Besides, all it took was one little reminder and it all came back to me, yeah?" He shrugged, seemingly carelessly, but she saw how his smile didn't reach his eyes and knew that he'd be bothered by this just as she was.

Still, dwelling on it wouldn't help anything.

So she smiled, squeezed his arms, and they made their way to class.

Harry performed exemplarily in Defense, as usual. Moody even recommended a book to him about how to incorporate swordplay into a magical duel. He wrote the name of the book down eagerly. Although she noted that he seemed oddly … shy? Around his wand at first. As if he wasn't used to holding it anymore, let alone using it.

She supposed he wasn't. He hadn't used it once during the memory he showed them, and it had taken him ages to find it in his coat pockets. Once he got over his hesitance though, his movements were more precise and fluid than Hermione had ever seen, and she quickly found herself attempting to emulate the way he cast magic.

She wasn't sure if it made the magic itself easier, but her aim was significantly improved, and that's a win in and of itself.

Hermione spent much of the day wondering just what kind of beasts and other horrors he must have faced that rendered his _wand_ a less useful tool than a _sword_.

Were they magically resistant? That would make the most sense. She recalls reading about Nemean Manticores, and how their skin was so magically resistant that an enchanted blade would be unable to cut them. Only a completely non-magical weapon had any hope of hurting them, and since most every weapon made in the ancient days would have been enchanted in some way it gave rise to the myth that Nemean Manticores had unbreakable skin.

Of course, the Statute of Secrecy turned that myth into the Nemean Lion of the Heracles legend. If the things he faced in the Nightmare were like that?

A wand would be less than useless, truth be told.

But that's only one theory, and the not knowing was starting to drive her crazy.

At lunch, she could hold back no longer.

"Harry?" She started tentatively, not wanting to upset him.

"What's up?" He said around a sip of water. He wasn't looking at her, too busy eyeing the Weasley twins apprehensively. Their pockets were smoking rather a lot, and they kept whispering furiously to each other and shoving one another. It looked to be growing into one of their odd twin rows that never ended in shouting, but in furious looks and crossed arms that said more than words really could.

"You didn't use your wand much in - in Yharnam, did you?" She finished in a whisper. He turned to her, blinking in surprise. He set his goblet down and gave her his full attention.

"No, not at all really. Why do you ask?"

"I remember you not using it at all in the memory you showed us, and you needed to get used to it again in Defense." She shrugged, suddenly feeling shy under his total nonchalance. He hiked up a disbelieving brow at her.

"That's _how_ you know I didn't use it much, but not _why_ you're asking something you already know the answer to." He gave her a teasing grin, bumping his shoulder against hers. She couldn't help smiling in return.

"Go ahead and ask your real question, 'Mione."

"Well, I wanted to know why that was. Were the - the _creatures_ you fought magically resistant?"

"Some were," he hesitated. "If my assumptions about what magic really _is_ are correct." Several questions cried out in her mind at that, but he continued before she could so much as open her mouth.

"But, no. Most of them weren't, as far as I know. I didn't use my wand because I didn't know any spells that would actually be worth a damn in the Hunt." He shrugged, a careless grin in center stage on his handsome face. "Simple really."

She groaned, burying her face in her hands. "So _simple!_ I was worrying that question around in my head all morning, and it never occurred to me that your wand wasn't useful because you just didn't know how to use it in battle!"

Harry had the gall to laugh at her.

She tried to be annoyed at him, she really did, but then his hand was there, a comforting weight, rubbing her shoulders, and the sound of his laugh really penetrated her thoughts, and she realized that that was the first honest, happy laugh he'd had since the Goblet spat his name out what felt like a lifetime ago.

Then all she could do was join him in laughing at her own ridiculousness, peeking out from under her hair to get a glimpse of his smile; at his too sharp teeth, and how his nearly luminous eyes crinkled at the edges when he was really, truly happy.

She burned the image into her mind, and vowed to make it happen as often as she could from now on.

His brow furrowed for no reason she could see, and she frowned. She wanted him happy dammit!

"Blood's sake, Hermione, you've got a knot the size of a fecking apple in your shoulders."

She just blinked at him. "What?"

"Turn 'round." His hands were on her hips all of a sudden, lifting her up as easy as anything, turning her to sit astride the bench, back facing him.

"What?" She squeaked again.

"I've got it." Then his hands were on her shoulders, thumbs rubbing over a spot of tenseness that Hermione had no idea was even there, just under her shoulder blades. He pressed down just hard enough for her to _really_ feel it without outright hurting her, and she had to bite down on her lip to keep the satisfied groan that wanted to escape from slipping loose.

"You've gotta stay loose, 'Mione. Not good for the body to be so tense all the time." He pressed the heels of his hands into the knots in her shoulders, spreading the pressure out deliciously, and there was no force on Earth that would have stopped the brief moan that slipped out from between her lips.

She immediately tensed, face flushing scarlet, utterly mortified.

"Hey now, none of that!" Harry admonished playfully, leaning up to whisper directly in her ear. "It feels good, doesn't it? Let it. No use fighting what feels good when you know it's good for you, and you _need_ this something desperate, I can tell."

She let herself relax, eyes slipping closed to focus on the feeling of his hands on her shoulders, but her blush only burned brighter at his words and the feel of his breath washing over her neck.

"That's better." He pressed his lips to her pulse point and pulled away so quickly that Hermione almost thought she imagined it. But no, that shot of hot electricity thrumming through her body had to have come from _somewhere_.

" _Harry!_ " She tried to sound scandalized, but it came out too low and breathy to be anything other than _pleased_. "We're in the Great Hall!" She finished weakly, leaning back into his magical hands despite her words.

"Lunch is almost over, most everyone has left, and besides! I'm just giving your shoulders a rub down. Nothing wrong with that, is there?"

She bit her lip as she turned that over in her head.

"I suppose not." She relented finally.

"It's good to see you relax, 'Mione. _Even better to feel it happen with my own two hands_." He finished in a low murmur that vibrated against the shell of her ear he was so close, and Merlin damn her she nearly moaned again!

Control! Control control control! Focus!

Hermione Granger is not a slave to her baser instincts!

Which is why she said: "We should probably be getting to class. Transfiguration next, Professor McGonagall won't like it if we're late." Instead of turning around on the spot and snogging the stupid git senseless right there for all to see.

Harry sighed despondently. "Suppose you're right." He gave one last good, hard rub across the spot where the knots _used_ to be, and stood up, offering her a hand.

"Up you go then," he said as he helped her onto her feet, letting their fingers entangle like it was only natural that they hold hands. She bit her lip, unable to quite meet his utterly pleased expression head on, so she sniffed once and squared her shoulders, ready to completely change the topic.

"Thanks for that, Harry. It honestly felt amazing." Until she realized just how much _better_ she felt as they made their way to class.

"Anytime, anywhere." He smirked, and Hermione rolled her eyes and slapped his shoulder even as her cheeks burned bright. He just laughed, squeezing her hand affectionately and effectively melting her heart in the process.

"Prat." It came out more like a pet name than a curse.

"Nerd." He retorted in the exact same overly fond manner. She snorted, amused despite herself, and laid her head on his shoulder for the rest of their walk to Transfiguration.

When they got to the classroom, Harry tugged them over to a desk in the far corner of the room. She acquiesced despite her usual insistence on sitting front and center whenever possible.

His pleading expression played her heart strings like a violin.

Professor McGonagall handed out cages with what she informed the class were guinea fowl inside, and instructed the class to turn them into guinea pigs with the standard transfiguration spell.

They were rather beautiful birds, the largest about as tall as a chicken but significantly more slender.

The only thing they had in common with guinea pigs was that 'guinea' is in their name. Hermione wondered if that word association was supposed to be a help or a hindrance to the process of transfiguring the bird into the much smaller rodent.

"Remember class: visualization, intent, and willpower. All three are needed to achieve a proper transfiguration. You must see the change in your mind before you can make it a reality. You must intend for the change to happen exactly as you see it, and you must have the will to follow through with the change no matter how challenging it may be. Now, hop to it!"

That said, the Professor stationed herself at her desk, watching her class as a lion would watch their kingdom, alert for any sort of nonsense or goofing off.

"Right then!" Hermione said, turning to give Harry an encouraging smile. "Let's hop to it, shall we?"

He huffed out a short laugh, said: "Sure thing, 'Mione." and gave his fowl a dubious look. She started in on her visualization exercises, trying to _see_ the bird become a guinea pig in her mind as clearly as possible.

"How do these things survive what we put them through?" Harry muttered to himself, almost too quietly for Hermione to hear, and her visualization crumbled around her as she contemplated the question.

Honestly, how _do_ these animals survive Transfiguration lessons? The hedgehogs they had a few weeks ago got turned into pincushions and back. Multiple times! And that's not counting the god knows how many failed attempts they all made on their way to getting it down.

They turned a living, thinking creature into a non-living, utterly non-thinking _trinket_ , and it came out the other side just totally fine? What happened to its consciousness during that time? If a hedgehog even has one is debatable, true, but _assuming_ it has one. Or _worse_ , imagine if it were done to a person?

The animagus transformation is one thing. At least the animal they become still has a _brain_ , but if a person were transfigured into, say, a _rock_ , would they remain conscious and aware during that time?

Would they even technically still be alive?

And if their consciousness _doesn't_ persist while they were the rock, could they really be considered the same person when changed back? Wouldn't they be more or less a copy of who they were before being transformed, the original having, for all intents and purposes, _died_ when turned into a rock?

"Miss Granger," the Professor's sharp voice cut through what she was beginning to realize was an existential crisis, and she snapped to attention. Professor McGonagall stood in front of their desk, giving her a disapproving look.

"Yes, professor?"

"It's unlike you to zone out in class like this. Are you having difficulties?"

"Well, not with the spell no. It's just that I had a thought and it ran away with me. What happens to the consciousness of an animal we transfigure? Does it persist, unaltered, regardless of how thoroughly transfigured it is? For example, if I turned this guinea fowl into a rock, would it still technically be alive?"

She got all that out as fast as she could, not quite in one breath, but close to it. She knew that the Professor would likely interrupt at first opportunity and tell her to focus on her work rather than actually answer unless she finished first.

To her surprise, it was Harry that answered her question.

"Consciousness transcends the physical plane as we understand it. We are more than the flesh and bone and blood that make us up; greater than the sum of our parts. We are cosmic beings, awaiting our awakening." He had a far away look in his eye, lost in some memory or another, but he shook it off and shrugged with a self-deprecating grin.

"Course, whether that applies to something like a guinea fowl is a whole 'nother question entirely."

"Indeed." Professor McGonagall intoned, one eyebrow raised. "Please focus on the work for the day and save such wonderings for your free time." And then she was off to berate Dean and Seamus for _somehow_ letting their half transformed animals out of their cages.

"That was rather profound, what you said." Hermione whispered, hoping the Professor wouldn't notice her definitively _not_ getting back to work yet.

"You can thank Evelyn for that. She was a bit of a philosopher." He smiled, but Hermione could see the devastation hiding just under the surface, and she was suddenly and vividly reminded that Harry had lost someone incredibly near and dear to him in that Nightmare. Even if, by his own admission, she brought her end upon herself, it can't have been easy for him to go straight from that loss, on top of everything else, and throw himself back into class like nothing had happened.

His strength would never cease to amaze her.

She reached out and clasped his hand, letting their fingers entwine, hoping that her touch can say what she doesn't have words for. Doesn't have the time to express at that moment. The pain in his eyes dimmed, his smile became a bit less forced, and she thought he understood what she was trying to say.

"Best get back to it, yeah?" He squeezed her hand once, then let go. Reluctantly, she turned back to her guinea fowl and restarted her visualization exercise. Her eyes slipped closed, and she imagined the guinea fowl smoothly transitioning into a guinea pig and back, over and over again, until the transition was nearly instantaneous.

Just as her visualization was taking shape, and she was confident she could perform the spell correctly on first cast, there came a horrid squawking sound from her right, changing midway through into a gurgling squeal, and something wet and warm splashed across her cheek and neck.

Her eyes flew open, and her hands went to her mouth to stifle her gasp when she got a good look at the mangled mess of limbs and _eyes_ that used to be Harry's guinea fowl. It looked like it might have been trying to be a rather small piglet and failing spectacularly. It had too many legs, some sticking out at odd angles, one even curving up and away from the base of the skull. A skull absolutely _lined_ with eyes of various shapes and sizes, blinking seemingly at random.

The _thing_ let out a pathetic squeal, blood spurting from its malformed jaw, and Harry growled in frustration.

"Fuck's sake, that wasn't what I wanted to happen at all." He frowned thoughtfully down at the poor creature, swished his wand, and it squealed again as it shifted, bones audibly crunching as they changed shape, until it was back to being a guinea fowl.

 _Almost_ a guinea fowl. It's claws were too sharp, beak more like a raven's than anything else, and Hermione swore she could see eyes peeking out at her from under its feathers. Harry tapped his wand against the cage, contemplating his not-a-guinea-fowl, and slashed his wand at it again.

Just like that, it was back to being a normal guinea fowl.

"You know," Harry started, casual as anything as he turned towards her. "I think it would help if I knew what a guinea pig was." He smirked self-deprecatingly, and despite being fairly sure he had managed to get blood on her face, and vaguely horrified by what she had just seen, Hermione giggled.

If her giggle was a bit manic, fueled as much by adrenalin as actual humor, Harry didn't seem to notice.

"I'll show you, if you'll be so kind as to wipe this blood off of me." She offered teasingly. Harry blinked at her, smile slipping away, before he pulled a handkerchief out of his robes with a start.

"Shite, 'Mione! I'm sorry," He exclaimed as he held her face steady with one hand while he gently wiped the blood away.

"I didn't even _notice_ the blood until you mentioned it." He muttered lamentably.

"You must be rather used to the sight of blood by now. Don't worry about it, Harry. It's okay." She did her best to give him a reassuring smile, but he only scowled.

"Shouldn't be so used to it that I outright _don't notice_ it." She didn't know what to say to that, so she reached up to cover his hand where it cupped her cheek instead. His scowl softened the moment she touched him.

"There!" He announced after a moment. "Right as rain. Er, almost anyway. Some got on your shirt and I imagine it'll stain." He shot her an apologetic look. She glanced down at her shirt, and sure enough there was a small spattering of bright red dots on her collar and upper chest. They stood out in stark contrast to her otherwise stark white shirt, but it could be worse.

"Don't worry about it. I'm no stranger to getting blood out of white clothes." She shrugged carelessly, giving him an easy smile, and he relaxed, running one hand through his hair and mussing it up even further than it already was.

"Well, alright then. So! What's a guinea pig?" He asked, utterly genuinely, and it sent Hermione into a fit of giggles.

She eventually managed to get her giggles under control long enough to show him by demonstrating the spell on her own guinea fowl. Utterly flawless execution on the first try, thank you very much.

"Ohhh, right, _those_ little buggers. Used to see em in the pet store windows as a kid, I think. Never knew what they were called." He jabbed his wand authoritatively at his guinea fowl, and it obediently shrank and morphed, Hermione flinching as she could _still_ hear it's bones crunching although there was no arterial spray this time, and then there was a guinea pig in Harry's cage as well.

It wasn't blinking simultaneously, and Hermione swore it had too many teeth, but it was a good job nonetheless.

"Good job Harry!" She beamed at him, and he smiled shyly back at her. His eyes sparkled as they flitted across her face, and it took every ounce of her considerable willpower not to throw her arms around him and kiss him right there in the Transfiguration classroom.

If Professor McGonagall hadn't been watching them, she might have done it regardless.

Hermione got ten points for an 'impressive first cast,' while Harry only got five for 'successfully correcting his mistakes in a timely manner.'

They practiced the spell a few more times before the practical portion of the lesson ended, and they took out parchment to jot down notes on the lecture.

"Quills. _Quills._ " Harry muttered disbelievingly as they left class once the lecture was over. "Even Yharnamites had fountain pens at least."

"Oh what I wouldn't give for a good _pencil_." Hermione bemoaned. Harry made a noise of fervent agreement, giving her a look that screamed: 'I know right!?'

"Hey," He grabbed her arm, pulling them out of the stream of students and down a rarely travelled corridor.

"Whaddya say we go exploring for a bit? We got time before dinner."

She hiked her bag higher up on her shoulder. She thought about the essay they have due in potions in a few days. She considers that they really need to come up with some sort of plan regarding the Tournament. She knows that they have responsibilities; things that they must be doing, but then she takes one look at his hopeful expression and her resolve crumbles.

"Sure." She grinned.

An hour later, when she had him pinned to the solidly locked door of an unused classroom, his hands in her hair and the taste of him fresh on her tongue, homework and the Tournament were the farthest thing from her mind.

* * *

Albus found Marie in much the way he expected after Harry's explanation: unexpectedly.

He was wandering the halls without any real destination in mind, taking the time to appreciate the grandeur of his home for the first time in what felt like decades. The suits of armor, an insidiously clever defense mechanism left behind by Godric himself, gleamed in the midday sun. Tapestries depicting important and unimportant historical figures alongside depictions of fantasies both light hearted and gothic adorned the walls in equal measure, to the hundreds of moving portraits that hung from almost every available inch of the castle walls.

Those portraits could usually be relied upon to help him find anyone in the castle in short order, but alas: none could remember seeing Marie. Even the ones in the Hospital Wing insist that they've never seen anyone matching Marie's description.

Oddities abound where Marie, Harry, Yharnam, and this mysterious Nightmare are concerned.

He turned a corner into a lesser used corridor on the fifth floor; one that he and few others knew contained a lovely little shortcut between the Charms classroom and the Library, and lo and behold! There she was.

Holding hands with an exuberant third year Ravenclaw, Miss Lovegood. If Albus remembered correctly, and he'd never forgotten a name before. Miss Lovegood was bouncing animatedly between portraits and tapestries, Marie following along more sedately but clearly fully engaged.

"And _this_ is the portrait of Lady Trixibelle Artigue. Known the world around for being the _stuffiest_ witch to have ever lived! _Aside from the modern Minerva McGonagall of course._ " She finished in a dramatic whisper that set Marie giggling, and the girl simply radiated joy at the sound.

Albus found the moment so incredibly adorable that he seriously considered turning around and leaving them to it. But Filius's report had been troubling, and he really does need to speak with Marie about it.

He cleared his throat to get their attention.

"Headmaster Dumbledore! Have you met Marie the Doll of the Moon who came from a Dream and might be an Angel?" She looked at him expectantly, unblinking, as if this was the most important question he would ever answer in his long life.

Marie hid another giggle behind her free hand.

"Why yes, I have had the great fortune to meet Marie. She's to thank for the sudden youthful spring in my step." He jumped in the air, clicking his heels together to demonstrate. There was no pain, no stiffness, and his own good health almost threw _him_ for a loop for a moment.

Luna gasped and rushed forward, dragging Marie along with her, until she came to a sudden stop right smack in front of him. She peered up at him, head canted to one side as she considered him.

"I thought you looked young, but then again you've always looked younger than you really were, so I wasn't sure if it was a trick of the Wrackspurts."

What an adorably precocious child. Albus thinks he might like her.

"No, no Wrackspurts here, Miss Lovegood. Just the work of a very kind Doll." He smiled at Marie, and she gave a little curtsy in return.

"What are you two up to so far from the Great Hall during lunch?" He inquired.

Luna began humming a tune, turning to inspect a portrait of a rather homely wizard that Albus is _sure_ told him he hadn't seen Marie earlier that day. Her nose nearly touched the canvas.

"My little Luna wanted to show me all her favorite places in the castle." Marie effused, sending an adoring smile the young witch's way.

Albus had to fight to keep his eyebrows in a neutral position. Marie having a close relationship with Harry was one thing. Harry could take care of himself, and they'd known each other for months over the course of Halloween night. Her attachment and protectiveness of Harry makes sense. For her to meet and bond so quickly with another student was concerning.

He opened his mouth to say as much, then closed it again as he really thought about it.

It's really not that surprising, is it? Marie had had _no one_ but Harry and that Evelyn woman for company, and before that: no company at all. She lived a lonely life for, well, Merlin knows how long. It's only natural that when given a chance, she would reach out and form friendships with whoever was willing.

And Miss Lovegood, if the rumors he has heard are to be believed, has been just as lonely and Marie was.

Perhaps they can do each other some good.

Still, there's that morning's incident to discuss.

"I'm glad to hear that you've found a guide that knows the castle as well as Miss Lovegood here." The young witch gave him a dreamy smile, a hint of pride showing through.

"I'm showing her all the _secret_ places! She's even pointed out a few I missed!" She chirped happily. Albus chuckled.

"Be that as it may, I'm afraid I need to have a talk with Marie." He intoned seriously.

"Okay." Miss Lovegood shrugged, skipping a dozen feet down the corridor back to the portrait of Lady Trixibelle Artigue, whom she proceeded to make a myriad of silly and strange faces at. Albus had never seen a portrait look more affronted. Not even Crescius Diggilus, a former headmaster of the school renowned more for his sadism than his teaching ability, had reacted as badly when Albus told him, rather gleefully, that he was outlawing all forms of corporal punishment.

Argus had, but he's not a painting and therefore doesn't count.

"What did you wish to discuss, Albus?" Marie asked him serenely, hands crossed primly in front of her.

"Ah, yes." He took a moment to gather his thoughts. "I wanted to ask you about the incident this morning in the Ravenclaw third year girl's dormitory."

She tilted her head curiously. "What incident?"

Albus blinked, unsure if she honestly thought nothing of what happened or was playing dumb. Her expression gave no hints either way.

"You were found sleeping in Miss Lovegood's bed by her yearmates before unleashing a wave of magical energy that shattered all their wands and rendered them all unconscious. They all missed their first period classes." He explained.

She squared her shoulders, matching his gaze evenly and without hesitation. He had to fight the urge to look away as her eyes flashed with something, some hidden emotion that sent a shiver down his spine.

"Those wretches sinned and refused atonement, so I laid a curse upon them. If they would use their strength to harm the innocent, then they would find their strength denied to them forever more."

"They were just children, Marie, what could they have done to deserve _that?_ " Albus demanded.

"Children are no less responsible for their actions than any others. I saw the cruelty in their hearts. The capriciousness. The willful ignorance. They treated my Luna as less than nothing, and when I demanded that they stop, they attempted to destroy me." She argued serenely, only the faintest downturn of her lips and the edge to her voice giving away how truly _furious_ she was.

Like a mother lion protecting her cub. Or, like a young woman he once knew, stepping between her daughter and an experiment gone wrong in an attempt to save her. All righteous protective fury, barely leashed and held back by an iron will.

"They tried to kill you?" Albus asked in a small voice. Filius's report hadn't mentioned anything of the sort.

"But of course, his report wouldn't have mentioned it if the wretches had lied." She explained, her lips quirking up into a barely there smirk. "Yes, they cast all manner of spells at me once they realized I was only a doll. I have suffered grave injuries in the past. Not all hunters were as Kind as Harry or as Good as Evelyn. But, _they_ harmed me out of simple madness. Those children did so out of maliciousness and cruelty. And it wasn't even directed at me."

"What?" He breathed, barely able to wrap his head around what he was hearing. For all the horrors that he had seen, from Grindelwalds fortress to Voldemort's first rise, never had Albus Dumbledore seen a child attempt murder.

He remembered Harry, at the end of his first year, sitting in a hospital bed that made him look far too small, asking him if he had killed Quirinius. He remembered telling him no, that Quirinius was already dead for all intents and purposes.

He remembers _lying_ , and he wonders if he should really be all that surprised by what Marie is telling him.

"They made Luna watch as they blasted me apart. Surely you know of the thick white blood that coated every inch of Luna's bed." She looked at him expectantly, and he nodded slowly.

"Filius's report mentioned a thick white liquid, but we didn't realize it was _blood_." They thought it was paint, or some sort of failed potion. A prank gone wrong perhaps.

"It was no prank, Albus." Marie intoned gently, finally realizing how hard he was taking all this. She reached out to him, cradling one of his hands between her own.

"How did you survive?"

She cocked her head as if that was an incredibly odd question. "Perhaps it would be best if I just showed you."

Then his world was swallowed up by inverse eclipses, a wall of moonlight rising up all around him, blotting out the world and beyond, seeping through his mental barriers as if they weren't there. A single, infinitesimal strand reached out, placed a single mote of moonlight within him, and then he was _there_.

_They held her down across from me, two of them holding her arms while another held a wand to her throat. They each wore such terrible smiles. Beastly things. Tears flowed unabated down her cheeks, mixing with my blood that had splashed her when this all began._

" _Luna, dear little Moonlight mine_. _Please, do not cry. I'll be alright." I promise, I promise you my little Moonlight. These witches cannot harm me in any way that matters. I'll be whole again in no time._

_Like it was all a bad dream._

_An older girl, one whose magic felt familiar to me, stepped up and leveled their wand at my head. Ah, yes, this is the petty one. The one that makes wards to keep out the enlightened._

_I looked into her eyes and knew her heart, and found only cruelty and petty jealousy. This girl would not have lasted in Yharnam. The Scourge would have taken her the first night. Just as it would have taken all the rest in this room._

_All except for Luna._

" _No!" She cried, finding the strength to break from her captors and rush to my side. She flung herself down on me, directly between me and Sue Li's wand, and I knew she aimed to protect me. To let harm befall her that might destroy her. It would be touching, if it were not so frightening._

_Sue Li's wand lit up with the same spell that had rent my legs from my body only moments ago. Her aim did not waiver, even as she recognized that Luna's head was now between her and I. She saw not tragedy, but opportunity. A chance to rid herself of someone she saw as lesser in a convenient accident._

_Disgusting._

" _Enough!" I snapped, and their wands shattered in their hands. They stood, frozen, unable to move in their sudden and terrible fear. In the next moment my body was whole again, and I stood, cradling my Luna in my arms as she pressed her face into my neck and sobbed._

" _You have taken your gifts, your strengths, and wielded them in ignorance and cruelty against the innocent. You are unworthy of your strength, and so I take it from you. A curse upon you I place, from now until the day the innocent you have so gravely wronged should forgive you. Magic, cleverness, and wit be beyond you."_

_The curse laid, they fell as puppets with their strings cut._

Albus came back to himself in a whirl of moonlight that coalesced into The Doll Herself, still stood in front of him, and for the first time he was well and truly _afraid_ of Marie.

She hadn't just broken those children's wands. No, she had bound away their very _magic_! Taken from them the wit and cleverness that was so much a central part of who they were. Such a terrible thing had not happened since the time of Merlin and Morgana.

"Do not fear, Albus." Marie soothed, and he realized she was still holding his hand. "Luna has a heart unlike any other I have ever met. She will find it in her to forgive them some day. Until then, they can spend their every waking moment atoning for what they have done to her these last three years."

Albus had heard the rumors. He had heard the whispers between students. Concerned, he had asked Filius to keep a close eye on her. Filius had assured him that Miss Lovegood wasn't exactly popular, but wasn't being bullied or ostracized in truth. And he, like a fool, had let it go.

Of course, Filius's assertion was born of Miss Lovegood's own assurances to that effect.

If half the rumors he had heard were true? Albus didn't want to know the extent of what those girls had done to Miss Lovegood over the years. He didn't want to know the extent of his failure.

It was out of his hands, now. They would atone as Marie had said. If there is a way to break or undo the curse that has been laid upon them, it would likely take longer to discover than it will for Miss Lovegood to forgive them.

Curses, true curses, are not easily broken. He's spent _decades_ trying to break the curse on the DADA professorship without success, after all.

"What about their schooling?" He whispered, utterly lost.

"They will adapt, or they will not. It is in their hands now."

"You've put me in a difficult spot." Albus sighed, thinking about the talks he would have to have with those four girls. And their parents.

"But," He continued. "I cannot fault your actions too heavily. You _did_ save Miss Lovegood's life, and for that I am incredibly grateful." Taking that into account, suspending them might not be a terrible idea actually. Although, that might be a tad cruel, considering the punishment Marie has already bestowed them. Food for thought.

"Thank you Headmaster!" Luna chirped from where she was now - how in Merlin's name had the girl gotten in the rafters?

"It's good to know that you care." She finished, hanging upside down from the rafter directly above his head. Her pale-blond hair, loose as the day she was born, fell around her head in a halo that Albus thought he could almost reach if he tried.

"I care about all my students." Albus insisted, not knowing what else to say in this situation.

"In an abstract sort of way. The same way a person would care about the well-being of someone they had never and would never meet. But, that's not what you meant." She smiled dreamily at him, and Albus had to wonder if she was right.

He wished them both a good day, and left to return to his office. He had a rather large amount of work ahead of himself rather suddenly.

* * *

Luna frowned at Marie from her position in the rafters.

"Marie," she flipped around, letting herself fall, knowing that Marie would catch her. She drifted down into the Doll's arms like a feather on a wave of soft moonlight. Holding her didn't seem to strain her at all.

"Why did you let them hurt you so much?" She finished, looking as deep as she could manage into her eyes. Marie's rune flashed across her mind again, sharper than ever before, and she thought she knew the answer.

"Do you not think that you're worth protecting?"

Marie smiled gently. "No, because I do not _need_ protecting. You threw yourself into harm's way for me, and that means more to me than I know how to say, my little Luna, but even so. It was unnecessary. My suffering, no matter how great, is not worth your life."

Luna cocked her head in thought, kicking her feet like a kid on a park bench.

"I suppose you are right, but that won't stop me from protecting you in the future. You don't deserve to suffer."

"Neither do you." Marie leaned down to rub their noses together, and Luna giggled.

"So then we agree." Luna concluded, and Marie gave her a questioning look. "We protect each other, since neither of us deserves to suffer!" She bounced in Marie's arms.

Marie's confusion melted into such soft fondness that it took Luna's breath away.

"We agree." She vowed. Luna saw how Marie's innate glow intensified, little motes of starlight and crimson visible in her aura for the briefest moment, and knew that that was a promise she could count on.

* * *

"If I had known that being an Auror was mostly fucken paperwork, I'dve never bothered with this _shite_." Tonks muttered to herself as she worked through the obscenely large stack of parchment on her desk.

"You arrest one, singular, just _one_ bloody pureblood ponce for muggle baiting, and you think to yourself: oh yeah, sure! Straightforward as straightforward cases go. Got three Aurors, two senior and one junior, as witnesses, how could this go wrong? Well, I'll tell ya how it could go ass up faster than a parisian whore! It-"

"Tonks." A deep voice cut into her rant like a hot knife through butter. She turned to her visitor, and her annoyance morphed into a patently fake, cheerful smile.

"Shack! Ol' buddy, ol' pal! Come to gawk at the amazing paperworking witch? Doing _such_ wonders for society, I am, signing off on these papers that are gonna let that two-bit, good for nothing, muggle-baiting _arsehole_ off with nothing but a fine because he's got more gold than brain cells!" She exploded, no longer able to keep up her cheerful facade.

"Tonks." Kingsley Shacklebot said again. "We have a new assignment. Your paperwork can wait."

She immediately perked up, hair lighting up bright bubblegum pink where it had been a mousy brown before.

"Too right it can wait!" She jumped up onto her feet and followed Kingsley to a private conference room.

"What's the assignment?" She was practically bouncing on her feet in her excitement. She just barely caught Shack fighting against a grin for a fraction of a second.

"We'll find out soon." He intoned, utterly serious.

The conference room was packed when they arrived, and Tonks immediately spotted the reason: Minister Bloody Fudger himself was there, twirling his stupid bowler hat around in his hands. That insipid pink toad of his simpering at his side.

"Please tell me this circus isn't _Fudge's_ idea." She whispered desperately to Shack, but he could only shrug.

"Madame Bones is here as well, she should be the one in charge here."

"At least she'll keep the Bloody Fudge Packer's raging incompetence in check." Tonks muttered to herself. Shack shot her a warning look, but she ignored him as they took their seats near the end of the long table that was the sole seating area in the room. The door sealed in that special way that indicated that everyone that had been summoned had arrived, and they were assured the highest level of security in the entire Ministry building.

"Right then, that should be everybody." The Fudgewit announced helpfully. "You've all been selected to be a part of a truly momentous occasion. Something the likes of which have never happened in magical history!" He declared, and Tonks could only roll her eyes at how immediately useless the Minister's opening lines were.

They're _Auror's_ for fucks sake! They don't need to be hyped up for their job, they just need good, _actionable_ intel, and orders that make a lick of Merlin-be-damned sense.

"You Aurors have been selected for a variety of reasons. Be they experience, exceptional skill in one area or another of practical magic, or investigative skills, you all will have a role to play in the coming days!"

"Circe's tits, _get on with it!_ " Tonks heckled under her breath. Shack shot her another look, but no one else reacted, so she figured she'd been quiet. Enough.

For now.

"You've all been selected to be the security escort for a diplomatic/exploratory expedition." Madame Bones cut in, the very _model_ of helpfulness! Tonks could kiss her right now!

Minister Useless Fudgeball looked vaguely annoyed and slightly relieved to have the spotlight taken off of him. Useless wanker. The rotund pink thing that liked to follow him around tried to say something encouraging, but he waved her away. A mouth that wide should not be allowed to pout. It just isn't right.

"At precisely midnight last night, the DOM detected a massive magical surge of unidentifiable cause and composition. It sent a wave across the country, and by our best calculations: the world."

Okay, Bonesey had her attention now. Tonks sat up a little straighter in her seat.

"They were able to pinpoint the source of the surge to an island thirty miles off the eastern coast of Scotland. That island is the lost island of Yharnam."

"What!?" Tonks nearly shouted, and every head in the room turned to her at once. She immediately ducked down in her seat.

"Ah, sorry, didn't mean to interrupt. Just surprised me is all."

Madame Bones nodded to her. "Understandably so. For anyone present that doesn't know the significance of Yharnam: it was a _purely muggle_ island nation that completely disappeared in the early eighteen hundreds. Let me repeat that."

She leaned on the table, looking every single person present in the eye one by one.

"A _purely. Muggle._ Island nation that vanished without a trace over a hundred and seventy years ago. Running theories were that the island had been put under fidelius, but that theory has problems, namely that putting something the size of Ireland under Fidelius would require more magical power than exists in the entire planet."

She rose to her full height, crossing her arms over her chest.

"So I think you can understand why we'd be interested in this lost nation suddenly _reappearing_ amidst a wave of magical energy never before recorded in history."

Merlin's saggy _ballsack!_ Yeah, Tonks thinks she gets it. This is _huge!_

"You lot are part of the team selected to go to Yharnam and investigate. Make contact with whatever government exists there, and insure that the Statute remains in place."

"Your job is simple: security escort. A diplomatic attache will be accompanying you in the form of the Senior Undersecretary and Mister Beuford Tippany. Let them handle the finer aspects of diplomacy. Your job is just to keep them alive."

Alright, sounds simple enough. Babysitting duty on foreign soil. From what Ol' Mad-eye used to say, the biggest problems in missions like that are often the people you're meant to be protecting being stupid. So long as she takes a firm hand with them everything should be hunky dory.

"Also present will be a handful of Obliviators. Let them do their job where necessary, but don't let them get trigger happy. We don't know what you'll be walking into. Lastly, two Unspeakables will be coming along as well, at the behest of the DOM."

Buggering fuck. Unspeakables give her the creeps. Always hiding their faces and acting so superior because they think themselves above the law. She's never trusted one a day in her life and she doesn't feel the least bit guilty about it.

"Attempts to apparate to the island have failed." Bonesy continued seriously. "As have all attempts to create portkeys leading there, plotting, or scrying. You'll be heading there by broom. According to historical records there should be a major city, the city of Yharnam itself, near the southern coast of the island. You will go there first, search for any signs of habitation and government, and fan out north from there if needed."

She waved her wand and dossiers flew from a cart at her side to land in front of everyone there.

"Those dossiers contain everything you need to know for this mission. You have two hours to look them over and get your gear squared away. Meet your assigned squad leader in the Expedition room at precisely oh-nine hundred hours and _do not be late_. Now, let's make history. Dismissed!"

There was a great cacophony of sound as they all stood up as one, their chairs squealing against the floor almost in unison. Then they were all rushing out the door to make their preperations.

Tonks nearly tripped over the threshold, too focused on opening her dossier to notice the slight bump, but she caught herself at the last second.

"Hoo boy, this is the real deal." She muttered to herself as she read the dossier. Excitement sparked to life in her heart and lit a fire of nerves and enthusiasm. This! This right here was _exactly_ why she became an Auror. To make an actual difference, not waste her time filling out paperwork in triplicate.

Not even knowing that two Unspeakables, the pink toad herself, and some politician she vaguely recalls seeing around the Minister's office before, were coming could put a damper on things for her.

"Tonksey, you've been wanting to make your mark on the world, and here's your chance!" She sang to herself as she got her gear ready.

* * *


	5. A Doomed Expedition 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Ministry Expedition to Yharnam is underway.

She felt it.

The moment they passed through whatever _barrier_ was around the island of Yharnam.

One moment they were cruising along, the wind whipping their coat-tails around behind them as they sped towards the rather bland looking island in the distance. It really didn't look like anything special to her: just another island covered in thick forests as far as the eye could see.

The next moment _something_ happened. A veil was pierced, and everything changed.

There was a great city, sprawling across the southern tip of the island, devouring the horizon where before there was nothing but trees. It rose like a monolith into the sky in front of them as if whoever built it thought that they could reach the heavens themselves if they built just _one more floor_. One more high tower. Again and again until the city was stacked as much on itself as it was sprawling.

She swore she saw some of the buildings moving. Or was it something massive moving _among_ the buildings? She couldn't tell.

But that wasn't what held her attention.

No, what she stared at with wide, terrified eyes, was the sky. The clouds that had once been there were gone. The bright blue of midday had deepened to the perfect blackness of night, crowded with more and larger stars than Tonks had ever seen before in her life. Here and there flowed swirling and churning cosmic nebulae. It felt like stepping through a magical telescope, or a kaleidoscope, right into the stars themselves. It was as if she could but reach out a hand and touch the cosmos just above her head, but if she looked down she knew the ocean would be _right there._ Less than a hundred feet below her.

If she looked hard and long enough, she swore she could see a pattern to it all. Some sort of order in the otherwise haptic and changed sky, as if directed by an unseen hand. It was almost beautiful.

And there, hanging low and immense over the city of Yharnam, was the Moon. Red as blood, and different in ways that Tonks couldn't articulate. She knows, she knows it in her _bones_ that the Moon should not look like that, that it looked different just the other night, but try as she might she could not recall how it _should_ look.

"What the fuck!" She cried out, as did the rest of their expedition. Ten pairs of Aurors, five obliviators, one diplomat, one garishly pink toad woman, and even the two usually unflappable Unspeakables all cried out as one as their brooms dipped beneath them.

"Our brooms are failing!" Dawson yelled, voice amplified by the communication earing they all wore, making it sound like he was right in her ear.

"Make for the city! Quickly!" Captain Scrimgeour ordered, already pushing his shaking broom to it's limit. The rest followed suit.

"What in Merlin's name happened to the sky!?" One of the obliviators cried out, clearly panicked.

"The Moon, the Moon isn't _right!_ " Another yelled. Tonks ignored them, focusing on pushing her dying broom _just enough_ that it would let her land safely. The city was beneath them now, they only needed a decent LZ. Scrimgeour pointed, barked out that he saw a good landing zone, and they followed obediently. Her broom dipped again, and she let out a startled yelp, holding on for dear life.

"C'mon, c'mon _c'mon_ don't give out on me now!" She pleaded with her broom. It was shaking in her hands now, the wood at the very front starting to peel and chip. What the fuck was happening!?

" _What are those things on the buildings!?_ " Someone screamed, and it was the sheer bewildered _terror_ in their voice that got Tonks to look to where they were pointing.

She wished she'd kept her head down.

Clinging to the side of the massive Cathedral that dominated the heart of Yharnam proper, and crawling over rooftops and walls here and there all over the city, were dozens of enormous, spider-like _things._ They looked like horribly botched transfigurations, like if a spider or a stick insect tried to make itself into a person and got absolutely _none_ of it right. They had egg shaped heads, some with tentacles where Tonks imagined their mouths would be, some without, with hands that had no right having as many fingers as they had.

They turned, all of them, all across the city, as one to regard the expedition slowly falling out of the sky. Something in Tonks shuddered, her concentration broke, and her fraying broom fell a good ten feet before she was able to pump enough magic into it to keep it's broken body aloft a moment longer.

They didn't land so much as crash into the plaza that Scrimgeour had picked as their LZ. Tonks hit the ground so hard that it sent her sprawling, scuffing her hands on the cobblestone street.

"Ow, fuck." She whispered as she picked herself up, wand in hand, already surveying the others for injuries. Most of them had ended up on their asses, same as her, and she was momentarily glad she wasn't the only to fall over this time.

She took a deep breath and nearly gagged. The city was thick with the sickly sweet stench of rotting and burning flesh, and something else. Something pungent and _sticky_ that she couldn't put her finger on, and had no desire to touch the source of whatsoever.

"Everyone alright?" She called out, and got a chorus of affirmatives from the other Aurors, a handful of vaguely assenting muttering from the obliviators, a terrified whimper from Beuford Tippany, a haughty sniff from the toad, and absolutely no response from the Unspeakables. They were already off in a corner, casting who knows what kind of detection magic at the corpse of some unfortunate hound that had been run through with an unreasonable number of blades. One of them bent down, pulled out a syringe from somewhere, and took a blood sample from the poor thing for some reason.

Fucking Unspeakables never make any sense.

"What is the meaning of this! What kind of shoddy equipment did your department give me! A _proper_ broom would have made that journey without difficulty!" Madame _fucking_ Umbridge shrieked in a rather impressive impression of a banshee at Scrimgeour. He scowled, and was about to retort -

An unearthly howl echoed across the city, followed immediately by another, and another. More and more joined in, none quite the same, some sounding more like a human scream than anything else, until the sound rose up from all around them, higher and higher until it broke with an ear splitting screech that had Tonks clapping her hands to her ears, and set her heart racing in her chest.

Tonks and the rest of the Aurors had fallen into a defensive circle around the others, training kicking in as their instincts screamed _danger!_

"Anyone see anything?" Captain Scrimgeour barked. Tonks scanned the street, the mostly broken windows of the tenement housing, the bolted doorways, the hundreds of coffins that lined the street, all chained shut - Wait, what the _fuck?_ She blinked, eyes wide as saucers, her wand arm dipping as she took in the sheer number of presumably full coffins around them.

What the hell _happened_ here? Numbness seeped into her fingers at the unimaginable amount of death surrounding them, and she had to shake herself to force herself to _focus._ There could be who knows what lurking in the shadowed streets and alleys around them.

She looked, and looked, and all she saw were coffins and derelict buildings.

"Clear!" She called, and the others echoed her not a moment later. She blinked, surprised that she had been the first to report the all clear.

"Davis, Mathews, you're on lookout. Everyone else, bring it in." Scrimgeour got a chorus of 'yessirs!' from his Aurors, and they turned to gather around their Captain.

"You haven't answered my _question_ yet, Captain." Umbridge simpered in the most sickeningly false sweetness that Tonks had ever heard in her life.

He scowled at her again, but when he spoke he addressed his Aurors.

"We all felt it. We passed through some sort of field that disrupted our brooms." Tonks glanced down at the shattered kindling that used to be a top of the line broomstick. The wood had peeled back in strips, curling into itself in strange, fractal patterns. It looked painful, and she had to tear her eyes away and remind herself firmly that brooms aren't alive and can't feel anything.

"This island is inscrutable and unplottable, but that doesn't mean we can't apparate or portkey _out_. We've all got our emergency portkeys still?" Tonks and the rest of the Aurors all pulled their portkeys out from wherever they kept them. She wore hers as a necklace as per standard procedure, but some preferred to wear rings, or even belt buckles. Mad-Eye, she knew, kept one of his emergency portkeys in a hidden socket in his false leg. She suspected his magical eye might be another, but he wouldn't tell her.

"Good, what about you lot?" He directed at the obliviators, who all obediently did the same.

"Now Captain," Umbridge started with a disgusting smile stretching her already enormous mouth to obscene levels. "You can't _seriously_ be suggesting that we abandon the mission so soon."

Tonks wanted to punch the smug bitch right in her already flat nose. See how she likes having a concave nose instead.

"I am." Scrimgeour insisted, utterly unphased. "Everyone get ready! We portkey out on my mark!" Tonks gripped her portkey like a lifeline, glancing up at the swirling cosmos just over her head, and the titanic creatures she could see watching them in the distance. A shudder rushed down her spine.

She's not about to complain that the mission was a wash. No sir.

"Now see here!" Umbridge squealed sharply. The sound made Tonks wince. "I am the Senior Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic himself! I have orders, as do the rest of you, to make sure this mission succeeds. We will _not_ be retreating." She actually stamped her foot like a little girl for emphasis.

"Madame Umbridge, I don't _care_ who you are back in London. Here in the field, _I am in charge._ You will do as I say, or I will stun you and bring you back regardless. Am I clear?" Tonks bounced on the spot, smiling widely at her Captain laying the hammer down on the horrid bint.

Umbridge reddened like a tomato and tried to stick her nose in the air like a poncey Malfoy would, but it just made her look vaguely constipated.

"This failure will reflect rather poorly on you, Captain. I wouldn't expect your career to go much further if you give up so easily." Damn shit fuck! Everyone in the department knows Scrimgeour has his eyes on the Minister seat. That's the one threat that might actually cow him into submission.

He narrowed his eyes at her, looking for all the world like a lion about to smack a rival that dared to encroach on his territory.

Then he glanced up at the sky, at the city around them, and crossed his arms.

"Quite frankly, _I don't give a damn about my career at the moment_. We're leaving. On my mark!" He ignored the Umbitches further protests. "Five! Four! Three! Two! One! GO!"

Tonks, and everyone else alongside, muttered their portkeys activation phrase.

Nothing happened.

No hook in her belly. No whirling vortex transporting them safely back to the Department.

"What?" She muttered disbelievingly, holding her portkey up to examine it, and her blood went cold.

Her portkey had been a rather simple wood carving of a fox, but now it was blackened and smoking, and as she watched it cracked and crumbled to dust right there in the palm of her hand.

She stared at the pile of ash and dust in her hand for several long moments, her mind empty save for a vague buzzing sound.

"Shite." She muttered absently.

"Our portkeys didn't work?!" Beuford Tippany cried, looking around with blind panic at everyone around him, who all seemed as lost and confused as Tonks felt in that moment.

Except for Umbridge, who looked pleased as punch to be getting her way.

"What are we going to do? We can't apparate that far, _no one_ can apparate that far! _WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO!?_ " Tippany screamed at the top of his lungs.

"Get a hold of yourself man" Mcdonnell grabbed the man, trying to get him to look him in the eye. "Quiet down now, we don't know what else is here with us." He slapped a hand over the babbling diplomat's mouth when he showed so signs of calming.

"Looks like we have no choice but to continue the mission." Umbridge pointed out, the very picture of smug satisfaction.

"Indeed." One of the Unspeakables cut in. Tonks wished she could see his face through his enchanted hood so she could imagine breaking his nose all the more clearly.

"We are committed now." The other Unspeakable added. Scrimgeour blew out a breath through his nose.

"Fine. But we do this my way." The Unspeakables inclined their heads, conceding the point. "Right, everyone-"

A horrid screech cracked through the plaza, rattling her teeth. At the same time, Davis yelled out "Contact! High ten o'clock!"

She spun around, wand up and ready, and stumbled on the spot at what she saw. Clinging to the side of the nearby tenement housing was a beast the likes of which she had never seen. Nearly half as large as the tenement itself, it held onto the building with an arm longer than it was tall covered in matted, bloody fur. Its other arm was more proportionate to its body and completely hairless, but both ended with massive hands, tipped with black claws as thick as her wrist. It braced itself against the building with legs that looked almost too small to support it despite appearing themselves like they'd been stretched unnaturally to reach the size they already were. It's head was small, with a narrow snout, slick with blood, and lined with razor sharp teeth jutting out beneath a pair of antlers that looked like they'd been ripped straight off a moose and just slapped on there.

It couldn't be natural. It _couldn't be._

It raised its head to the unnatural blood moon above, and _screamed_. Answering howls, cries, and echoing screams came back from every direction, closer than before.

Too close.

"Captain?" Tonks cried out, wanting some sort of _direction_ in that moment. Before he could reply, the massive creature tensed, then leapt off the building straight at Davis.

"Davis, move!" Someone yelled, but it was already too late. Davis snapped off a spell, which impacted center mass with a spurt of blood and a yowl from the creature, before turning on the spot, clearly trying to apparate.

Nothing happened, and Tonks watched as the thing's enormous hand slammed unerringly down on Davis, flattening him like an irritating house fly with a wet squelch.

It curled its claws around his body and carelessly flung him away behind it, to impact wetly against the wall of the tenements before falling to the ground.

"TAKE IT DOWN!" Scrimgeour bellowed, and a flood of spells poured from the nineteen remaining Aurors, coming down on the massive creature like explosive hail. Cutters, bludgeoners, blasting hexes, one of them snapped out with a flame whip, all of them sending the beast staggering back amidst a shower of blood. It's screams of pain and rage dug into her ears like a hot needle, underscored by the pounding drum of her heart.

She didn't realize she was screaming, stepping forward as her own barrage gained fervor, determined to avenge her fellow Auror.

The beast raised its arms up over its head, rearing back as far as it could on it's too small legs, then brought them down with a shrill scream. She threw herself backwards, _just_ managing not to get crushed like Davis, only to be thrown even farther by the shockwave as it threw up a cloud of dust.

She rolled a half dozen feet, immediately springing up onto her feet when she came to a stop. She could practically hear Mad-Eye barking at her to "Stay on your feet!"

All around her, spread out now more than she would like, the other Aurors picked themselves up as well. Some slower than others, Shack among the first, Cornwall the last. In an instant they had their wands trained on the terrible beast once more.

The Unspeakables rose to their feet as one, wands held casually at their sides, heads cocked curiously.

Umbridge and Beuford groaned pitifully where they landed and didn't get up.

The obliviators scrambled away, screaming and panicking as they picked themselves up and ran, the only thing in their minds in that moment to get _away_ from the thing attacking them.

"Wait!" Tonks shouted after them. "Don't run! We might be surrounded-" Just then, the first obliviator passed by the shattered window of a tenement, and a black blur shot out, tackling him to the ground.

"Fuck!" She darted forward, stumbling slightly as the ground shook with the massive things steps as it came, screaming all the way, towards them. Scrimgeour ordered them to fire at will, and Tonks decided to trust them to take the beast down while she had her back turned.

The other obliviators had all stopped in their tracks, some utterly frozen, some stumbling backwards, one literally having fallen on his arse.

As Tonks got closer she got a good look at the thing pinning the first obliviator down. Anyone else would have said it was a mutated wolf of some sort, but Tonks knew better. The thing might look like a wolf, but it's arms and legs were too long, the proportions all wrong. She could see, as plain as day, that it used to be human.

Like a bigger, meaner, version of a werewolf, but sitting with it's legs sprawled out, barely more than two feet off the ground at the shoulder.

She raised her wand and shot out the most powerful bludgeoner she knew, already knowing it was too late to save the sorry bastard the lycan had pinned.

It grabbed the obliviator with its massive hands, clamping down on his neck with its jaws, razor sharp teeth punching right through, and shook its head. She saw the moment his neck snapped, as all the fight left him and he fell still even as his own blood poured like a hose down his chest.

In the next instant, her spell landed, her aim true, snapping the lycans arm at the shoulder, and it howled in pain even as it whirled around to face her. Blood dripped from it's maw, and one of its eyes had been clawed out at some point, but the other glowed an angry red.

Like blood.

Like the Moon above.

She fired off a piercing hex, giving it everything she had, and watched with satisfaction as the things skull crumpled inwards and it slumped over, dead before it knew what happened.

She grabbed the obliviator that had fallen on his ass, hauling him back onto his feet with a grunt of effort.

"Get back with the others!" She barked at them, eyes focused on the alleyway they had tried to escape into. She heard them scramble away, back to the rest of her team, but she hesitated before following.

There was something in that alleyway, she couldn't quite make out what it was. She squinted, leaning forward, something glinting in the dark, so she cast a lumos.

A dozen lycans like the one she just killed, of various sizes and colors, peered back at her, their bloodied lips pulling back over dagger-like teeth.

"Fuck me." She breathed out. She cut her lumos off, firing off an area effect depulso into the alley as she turned and ran back to the others.

They'd been scattered, spread out around the plaza as they rained spells down on the massive beast. She looked at it now, knowing what to look for, and saw in it the same signs she saw in the lycans in that alley.

Bloody buggering hell, that thing used to be a _person!?_

It let out a final, gurgling scream, before collapsing amidst a cloud of dust and blood in the center of the plaza.

"We got a problem! Bogeys on my six!" Tonks yelled, already turning to face the oncoming horde as she backpedaled towards her fellows.

Sure enough, one of the lycans was loping after her, faster than she would have expected. She threw a quick bludgeoner right in its face, but it barely so much as flinched as it leapt at her. She threw up a shield, but someone else hit it with a banisher that threw it onto its back a good ten feet away. A dozen different spells hit it at once, and it practically exploded in a shower of blood and viscera.

It didn't move again.

"There were more," Tonks gasped out, trying to catch her breath and calm her racing heart. "I saw them. In the alley."

A lycan came barreling out of the alley, followed by another, then two, then five, then more, climbing over rooftops and crawling along the walls of the tenement like insects.

"We're too exposed here. We've got to move people!" Scrimgeour barked even as they unleashed a barrage of spellfire at the encroaching beasts. They snarled and snapped, the braver ones leaping straight for them and being eviscerated under a hail of bright bolts of magic, while the rest tried to circle them, some leaping across rooftops and skittering across walls to get around behind them.

These blighters are _smart_ , Tonks realized in dismay.

"They're trying to surround us!" She shouted, turning to blast one off a wall near their three o'clock.

"This way!" Scrimgeour called out, and they fell in together, moving as a solid block with their protectees in the center as they raced down the main street. The horde of lycans raced after them, howling their bloodlust to the Moon. Their calls were answered by more terrible screaming and screeching from every direction, but nothing like what the first enormous creature had gotten in reply.

The street was slick. She nearly slipped trying to keep up with the others, and when Tonks looked down she realized it wasn't slick from rain, but with _blood_.

There were less coffins here. Instead, lining the streets were the bodies of beasts and men alike that had been strung up on crosses, crisscrossed with razor wire, and left to rot or burn.

Tonks and the rest of the rearguard kept up a solid deluge of spellfire to keep the lycans from catching them, but it wasn't enough.

They were getting closer, and once they caught up to them-

Someone screamed, and Tonks whipped around just in time to see something come crashing down right on top of Beuford Tippany. It pinned him down, grabbed his head in its hands, and pulled it right off like it was unstoppering a bottle of champagne. It dropped his head to roll across the street, and rose to its full height amongst them, standing easily ten feet tall despite it's hunching posture.

It looked like one of the lycans in the same way that a butterbeer and a bottle of firewhiskey look vaguely similar. It was thinner, more wiry, yet with even larger, stronger hands, and fur like ash splattered anew with fresh blood. It had devil's horns upon its head, and when it reared back and screamed, balls of fire came to life in its palms.

Tonks immediately threw up a shield, as did several others, but McKinnon, Jones, and Mack weren't quick enough. The devil threw out its hands, spewing forth a wall of flames that washed over them. She strained, sweat beading on her forehead from the heat and effort of blocking the flames, and then, just like that, they were gone. She dropped her shield and immediately shot a cutting curse at the devil's neck, but the thing saw it coming and _fucking ducked right under the spell!_

Umbridge screamed, having survived out of sheer dumb luck. She had fallen on her ass when the devil landed, and the fire had done little more than scorch her pompous updo.

Shame. If anyone deserved to die screaming as they burnt to death, it was that hag. Not McKinnon, Jones, and Mack. Not three good Aurors just trying to do their job.

None of the rest of them deserved any of this.

The thing kicked back at Umbridge without looking, sending her tumbling out ahead of the group where she stopped in a heap, gasping for breath.

One of the obliviators shot a banisher at the devil, but it barely even staggered before it swung around and stalked towards them, closing the distance in two rapid steps. It fell upon them, clawed hands swinging wildly, ignoring the hexes and curses Tonks' wand spat into its back as it tore the remaining obliviators to pieces one after the other.

Someone grabbed her by the arm, forcibly dragging her away even as she kept casting at the devil beast. It leapt aside one of her cutters, watching her go with intelligent, glowing eyes, and made no move to follow them. The horde of lycans scrambled around it, some slathering as they fell upon the bodies of the fallen to feast even as the rest continued chasing them, pursuing their own kill.

"Let me go! I've gotta kill that sonofabitch!" She spat, struggling against the iron grip pulling her steadily away.

"Tonks!" Kingsley's stern voice cut through the haze of blood and battle that had overtaken her.

"We have to move. There's a clinic up ahead, we should be able to find shelter there." He insisted, not unkindly. The fight went out of her, and she started actively following instead of fighting. He let her go at once.

"Right." She nodded her head determinedly. "Let's go."

The street inclined up, the tenement housing on their left coming to a sudden end, revealing a massive chasm running through the center of the city crossed by less than a handful of enormous bridges. The sound of squealing and screeching echoed up out of the chasm, and Tonks vowed to do anything in her power _not_ to find out what was down there.

They ran after the others, following them through a massive wrought iron gate which Proudfoot and Bently slammed shut behind them, working in tandem to weave a ward across it as quickly as they could. The others had already moved to secure the opposite entrance to the courtyard. She and Shack backed Proudfoot and Bently up, standing at the ready to buy them whatever time they needed to secure the courtyard.

They cast precision piercing and bludgeoning hexes through the bars of the gate, barely managing to slow the encroaching horde down even as they killed and downed several, leaving them to be trampled by their fellows.

Just before the first lycan slammed into the gate, Tonks snapped off a quick locking spell, hoping and praying that it would be enough to hold the gate shut. The lycan impacted the gate with a great clang, sending birds up from their roosts in fright, but otherwise not accomplishing anything.

The ward snapped into place just as the rest caught up, and they smacked into the gate with resounding gongs that echoed down into her bones.

She and Shack turned, but the same was true of the other entrance into the courtyard.

She eyed the scrabbling beasts just on the other side of a freshly warded wrought iron gate as they clawed and threw themselves at the barrier in an attempt to reach them, falling all over each other without care.

They might have been people once, but there was nothing left of it in them. They're just _animals_ now.

Animals that managed to kill - she glanced around, taking a quick head count - twelve fully trained Aurors, five obliviators, and one useless politician in less than an hour.

A sigh burst out of her like a cannon shot. Fucking hell. This is a _disaster!_

She didn't even see most of them go down. They must have died fighting that giant monstrosity when she was busy trying to save the feckless obliviators.

She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes, wondering just what the _fuck_ they were going to do now?

Their portkeys are ash and dust. Less than useless. Davis is proof positive that they can't apparate here for whatever reason. Their brooms tore themselves apart as soon as they arrived. What are they going to do?

 _Swim_ back to England? She snorted at the thought. Fat chance of that.

Although, if they could find a dock with a serviceable ship, or even a halfway decent _dinghy_ , they could make their way home that way. Hell, they could transfigure a boat if they have to!

"Everyone, gather up." Scrimgeour called out, and they all obediently gathered around him. The circle they made was depressingly small now, and she felt the loss of her comrades like a burning knife in her gut. Someone had taken the time to drag the uselessly moaning Umbitch with them, and Tonks felt a stab of white hot anger at that.

What right did she have to be alive when so many good men and women have died?

"We're stranded." Scrimgeour started plainly, not sugarcoating anything. There was a splash of blood across his cheek and matting his hair down over his ear. She had no idea where it came from or whose it was, but she didn't think it was his.

"We can't portkey out, we can't apparate, and we've lost our brooms. I'm open to ideas for how we can get home."

Tonks straightened, opened her mouth to shout her idea in defiance of the cosmos above them, but one of the Unspeakables cut in before she could.

"We have yet to satisfy the parameters of our mission." He intoned flatly.

"I don't _care_." Scrimgeour snarled, glaring at the Unspeakable so harshly that Tonks was surprised they didn't burst into flames on the spot.

"Eighteen people are dead. _Eighteen!_ I will be damned if I don't get the rest of my people out of here!"

"We must discover the source of the magical pulse-" The other Unspeakable spoke up, only to be cut off as Scrimgeour screamed at him.

" _To hell with your mission!_ I'm getting my people _out of your mess._ You can stay if you want, but we're leaving." The rest of the surviving Aurors turned to the Unspeakables, some crossing their arms, some nodding their agreement, not a one of them with any sort of kindness in their eyes.

Something buzzed in Tonks' spatial awareness, and she turned to look at the roof of the clinic whose courtyard they were taking refuge in. There, looking down at them from the roof, was one of the enormous spider-like things they'd seen on their approach.

It's head was like a honeycomb of bone around a hundred thousand pulsating eyes, glowing faintly with a sickly yellow light. This one had no tentacles on its head, and she realized that it had no visible _mouth_ either. It was holding onto the edge of the roof with two seven-fingered hands, leaning out as far as it could get to look almost straight down at them.

Almost like it was trying to listen in to their conversation, or, she thought with a shudder, like a person watching ants going about their days. Curious, but only an idle thought away from bringing out the magnifying glass and destroying them for no other reason than their own amusement.

It's two foremost limbs hovered over the group, and Tonks saw _something_ swirling between it's fingers and coalescing in it's hand. A whirling vortex of stars and galaxies, like the sky in miniature, contained in the palm of it's hand.

"Guys, I think we should get inside the clinic." She muttered into the silent stare off happening between the Aurors and the Unspeakables.

"What? Why?" Someone asked her, and she just pointed at the thing staring down at them. Everyone looked up, and there was a beat of perfect silence as they all stared at the creature holding the sky in its hands.

Then one of the Unspeakables breathed out: "Remarkable!" at the same time Scrimgeour ordered them inside.

They went without hesitation, Proudfoot stopping only long enough to drag Umbridge along with him. The thing watched them go, head tilting subtly to follow their movement, but it made no attempt to stop them, or interact with them in any way.

It just observed, and somehow that was even scarier than if it had outright attacked them.

Tonks knew how to deal with the shit that attacked them. Hostility is easy: you protect yourself and you protect your partner and that's that. This horseshit of - of -

She doesn't know how to respond to _whatever_ that thing is, or what it's doing.

She was the last through the door into the clinic, and when she turned to shut it she saw the two Unspeakables still outside, talking to each other and gesturing to the thing watching them.

Just as she was about to say fuck it and shut the door, the thing reached down and snatched one of the Unspeakables up off the ground. Her first instinct was to rush out and help him, get him out of its grip, kill it, _something!_ But, the other Unspeakable just watched, wand held casually at his side.

"Fuck 'em." She spat, slamming the door shut and hitting it with every locking and securing charm she knew. If they want to let this accursed place chew them up and spit them out, who is she to argue?

The clinic was dark, not a single one of the many oil lamps on the walls lit. The only source of light in the waiting room came from an odd little lamp in the corner of the room, stuck on a crooked pole that looked as if it had spouted out of the ground apropo of nothing. Tonks moved to get a closer look as the rest moved deeper into the room, and that was when she noticed that the floor around the lamp was rippling like water around a sapling. Just as she was about to reach out to touch the bells hanging from the lamp, there was a chorus of little moans and groans. Four odd little creatures rose up out of the ground around the lamp from the waist up; all turned towards the lamp and bent as if in prayer.

"The hell are these things?" She muttered to herself. The four little things turned blank, pale imitations of faces her way.

"I don't know." Shack replied, startling her bad enough that she jumped near a foot off the ground. "Sorry." He muttered.

"S'alright." She waved his apology away. "Let's get back to the others." She shot the little things an apprehensive look, then turned away.

As they made their way through the waiting room and into the clinic proper, guided by bluebell flames and Lumos charms, Tonks wondered why this place was so empty.

Those things in the streets had definitely been people once, she was sure of it, and the wall outside the clinic had been absolutely _buried_ under coffins. Same as the streets they'd run down. That those coffins were chained shut set off all kinds of warning bells in her head.

People weren't exactly _dying_. They were changing, but being treated as if they did die. A plague? Something like lycanthropy but significantly more contagious?

The room the seven surviving Aurors, and one barely conscious pink lump, were now in was filled with operating tables in two neat rows. Except for one corner by the entrance where two of them had been violently knocked over, seven inch bolts tearing up out of the hardwood floors. The walls were lined with bookshelves filled with tomes whose names Tonks couldn't make out in the gloom. By each operating table was one, sometimes two, IV stands holding old fashioned glass drip feeders. Tonks stepped up to one, shining her light in it, and saw that it was full of blood.

"These IV's are all full of blood." She announced to the others. "Where is everybody? Shouldn't a clinic be chock full of desperate people right now?"

"What makes you say that?" Shack asked her intently. They'd only been partners for a short time, but already he knew to trust her intuition. He'd lost his hat at some point.

"Those things that attacked us in the street: they used to be people."

"How do you know?" Scrimgeour demanded, eyes glinting in the sparse light cast by their wands and bluebell flames.

"They're shaped like they used to be people." She shrugged. "It's hard to explain. Their proportions look like if you took a person and tried to stretch them into something new and did a real shit job of it."

They all gave her dubious looks, and she huffed. "I have an eye for these things. Metamorph, yeah? I know what it looks like when the human body changes into something else."

"She has a point." Shack backed her up, which she appreciated.

"She may, but it doesn't matter. They're hostile and _that's_ all that matters." Scrimgeour grunted. "Alright. Spread out and secure the building. Stick with your partners. Tonks, Shacklebot, you head that way, Proudfoot and Bently, you take the other door."

Tonks took point, Shack barely more than a step behind her. They pushed their way through a set of doors and found themselves in a short hallway with a stairwell at the end. A door sat at the top of the stairs, firmly shut.

"Ah! Yes, you there! Down the stairs!" A high pitched voice called out excitedly from behind that door. They both swung their wands up in the same instant, ready for anything.

"Come! Come come! I've something for you, I do!"

Tonks gave Shack a questioning look, but he just shrugged, so she squared her shoulders and climbed the stairs. One of the fogged glass windows had been mostly busted out, and a single blue eye set in a deathly pale face stared out at her.

"Good! _Good._ Not often we get outsiders in these parts anymore. You're an awful lucky bunch, aren't you?" The man chuckled darkly. Tonks narrowed her eyes and firmed her stance.

"You're a quiet one, aren't you?" He muttered. "No matter. Here. Here, take this." A stone fell through the hole in the glass and rolled to a stop against her foot. She bent to pick it up. It was small, about the size of a golf ball, oddly porous and pearlescent.

"What's this for?" She demanded, brows knit in confusion.

"Ohoho! She speaks!" He laughed again, and she glared through the hole at his demented eye.

"I haven't the foggiest!" He declared cheerfully. "My new god bade me give it to you, and so I have. Now, job well done, I bid you farewell." There was an odd scuttling sound, and Tonks leaned down to peer through the hole in the door. A dark shape that couldn't possibly have _ever_ been human was rapidly retreating into the darkness, and then it was gone.

Tonks tried the door, but it was well and firmly locked.

"By Merlin's saggy scrotum, what the hell just happened?" She cried to her partner. He shook his head, clearly bewildered.

"Let's secure this door and get back to the others." They threw up a number of wards on the door to both hide its existence from the other side _and_ make it significantly harder to break down, then made their way back down the steps and into the main room.

Scrimgeour sent them a questioning look, and they nodded their heads. She considered the odd stone in her hand for a long moment, then pocketed it.

She'll worry about what it's for later.

Proudfoot and Bently came back from searching the next room not but a moment later.

"Building looks clear, Captain." Bently noted.

"Good. Everyone take five." They all sat down basically where they stood, unwilling to space themselves out too much. Just in case.

Tonks sat next to Scrimgeour, and laid out her idea of finding a dock and taking a boat home.

"It's not a bad idea." He acknowledged. "Only problem is that we have no idea where the dock would be."

"It'd be on the waterfront, aye?" Cerric put in. "We're on the southern tip of the island. All we gots to do is go south."

"Too right mate!" Tonks cheered. She let her wand sit in the palm of her hand, and cast the point me spell while concentrating on south. Her wand spun.

And spun.

And _spun_.

Stopped.

Changed direction.

And spun, getting faster and faster before it jumped up, right out of her hand, effectively breaking the spell as it clattered to the floor at her feet.

"Circe's tits, what is _wrong_ with this place?" She cried, her face falling into her hands as frustrated despair overwhelmed her.

"We'll figure it out." Kingsley muttered to her, and when she looked up he was holding her wand out to her with a determined set to his brow.

"Right." She swallowed thickly, not quite sure she believed him, but took her wand back.

"Alright everyone," Scrimgeour stood and they all followed suit. "Let's get a move on."

"What's the plan?" Dawson asked, bouncing on the balls of his feet nervously. Scrimgeour pursed his lips in thought for a moment before he shook his head.

"We need to orient ourselves. There's nothing else for it: we've got to find higher ground, figure out what direction the ocean is in, and go from there."

"Right!" Tonks barked, rolling her shoulders to work the tension out of them. "No sense in wasting time. Let's get the hell out of here. C'mon Shack."

She turned and marched back the way they came, the clomp of boots behind her a comforting thing. They might be fewer now than they were, but they're still a team.

Well, except for Umbridge. She's just a weight that poor Proudfoot seems to be stuck with now. Tonks can hear her complaining about her ankle hurting as she leans on the bigger man, demanding that he basically carry her fat ass for her.

Of all the people to die today, why couldn't _she_ have been one?

She slashed her wand through the security measures she put on the door, tearing them down all in one go, and stepped out into the courtyard again.

The _thing_ that had been perched on the roof was still there, watching her with too many eyes, but the swirling galaxies had gone from its hands.

The Unspeakables were nowhere to be seen.

"Where do ya reckon the Unspeakables went off to?" Cerric asked.

"Hell for all I care. They fucked right off to hell." Tonks shrugged.

The horde of lycans that had chased them had mostly dispersed, just the mangled, half eaten corpses of some of their dead lying in front of the gate, still being picked at by a few stragglers.

"Cannibalism. How lovely." Shack intoned flatly. Tonks snorted.

"Can they see or hear us?" Scrimgeour asked Bently, who shook his head.

"I put sound dampeners, notice-me-nots, and scent eliminators in that ward. They should have no idea we're here until we step through the gate."

"Good." Scrimgeour stepped in front of them all and turned to face them. "Stick close, watch each other's backs, and keep it quiet. We don't want to attract another pack of these things if we can avoid it."

Everyone was nodding their heads, ready to go, when there was great clanging noise, like giant gears moving against each other, followed by a high pitched wine, as if a rusty gate was protesting being opened after being too long forgotten.

Scrimgeour turned, pressing himself right up to the courtyard gate to get a vantage point.

"A gate further up the street just opened. I think those are _people_ coming out?" Tonks straightened, hair flashing bright yellow for an instant, hardly able to believe it.

"Wait, ah. No. Well, congratulations Tonks. Your theory seems to be correct." He grumbled. She slumped back down, her hair seeping into a dark blue. Shite, finding actual _people_ would have been such a great help.

The crazy man at the top of the stairs doesn't count. She's not entirely sure why, but her gut tells her he _really_ shouldn't count.

She heard footsteps coming down the road towards them. The remaining lycans looked up, growling and prowling forward.

There came a mighty bellow, and then a flood of what very clearly _used_ to be people came rushing down the streets. They were all, to one degree or another, malformed and misshapen. Their arms and legs were too long, clothes having clearly been made for them before they began their transformation. They were covered in rough fur, faces already starting to stretch into lupine muzzles in some cases. Several of them pulsed, a faint crimson light seeping out of their skin as if their blood was alight.

They came down on the lycans with axes, pitchforks, swords, and torches: hacking and swinging indiscriminately, and screaming inarticulately all the while. Several of them were taken down almost immediately, but the rest of the mob pressed on, and it was amidst shouts for blood and death that the remaining lycans met their ends.

The mob stopped, gathering blood and bits of bone and teeth from their kills and their own fallen, before moving on, shuffling off down the way Tonks and the rest of them had originally been chased.

"They can still talk." Shack muttered.

"Probably best if we avoid a confrontation regardless. Something tells me they won't exactly listen to reason." Scrimgeour added before pushing the gate open and stepping out onto the street.

Tonks was right behind him, Shack at her side, the rest in formation behind them. All of them scanned the street, the rooftops, the windows, anywhere that something could be lurking, waiting to ambush them.

The buildings rose up on each side so high that it almost felt like they were leaning over them, and there, in that narrow strip, the sky swirled and churned in indecipherable patterns. Always visible, no matter where they were, was the Moon; low hanging and bleeding.

They made their way through the narrow cobblestone streets at a brisk pace, using disillusionment and silencing spells to sneak passed the mutated townsfolk when necessary. The higher up they went, the more numerous, mutated, and denser the mobs became.

Tonks wondered if there were _any_ normal people left in this godforsaken place.

At one point they were forced to duck into a building to avoid a pack of roaming lycans. One of them pulsed with inner light like the few townsfolk Tonks had noticed, and she had no desire to find out what it meant.

It was then that she became aware of a sound vibrating through her mind without source. It was the chime of a bell, high and sweet, and yet some indefinable quality, some undertone that she couldn't quite grasp, but could _feel,_ set her teeth itching and adrenaline pumping into her veins.

"Do the rest of you hear that?" She asked, even more on edge than she was before. She got a round of grim nods in answer.

"Nothing that sinister should sound so beautiful." Cerric spat out, eyes darting around the darkened building in search of the source of the sinister chime.

There was nothing. Yet, the sound echoed again.

They took the stairs up and it let them out onto one of the great bridges over the chasm Tonks had seen earlier.

To their right the road came to a sudden and jarring end: a solid brick wall, caked in blood, with a pile of mangled and misshapen bodies at its foot. Standing at the top of the wall was a woman so decrepit that she looked like a corpse, standing there in her tattered and faded red robes in total defiance of her own frailty. She held in her right hand a tarnished silver bell. She gave it a sudden jerk, and that soundless, sourceless chime rang in her mind again.

The blood at the foot of the pile of meat and limbs swirled and bubbled, and then, out of the crimson vortex of ichor rose a terrible beast. Thrice the size of the lycans they'd seen before, all gangly limbs and short, patchy fur; glowing from within a bright vermillion. It's head was a nearly skinless skull, eye sockets empty, with two elongated fangs jutting out over its very human jaw. The skin on its back had been peeled away and left to flap over its head in a sickening parody of a shawl. It stood on all fours, but it was even clearer with this one than the others that it was once a human. She could see, in how it arched its skinless back, and how it moved as it loped away down another staircase and out of sight, that it was a vaguely man shaped figure, hunched over and crawling.

She breathed out a sigh of relief at its departure.

To their left, the bridge crossed the chasm, littered with abandoned coaches, half-eaten horses, the mangled corpses of people and creatures alike, and massive, bloated crows whose beaks were sticky with blood. Flies buzzed like a cloud above it all, and when the wind shifted Tonks had to cover her nose and stifle a gag from the intensification of the city's already rank stench.

A truly enormous cathedral loomed in the distance, dominating the skyline, with yet more of those giant creatures clinging to it as it reached for the stars above.

"We cross the bridge." Scrimgeour decided, and they marched onward.

The crows blinked blind eyes at them as they passed, and Tonks got the creeping feeling that they knew they were there despite their stealth spells.

"Stop, stop!" Umbridge demanded loudly, clearly out of breath as she pushed away from Proudfoot. "I need to rest."

They all stopped to stare at her with dumbfounded expressions.

"Listen here you little-" Tonks started, but then one of the massive crows heaved itself up off the ground, right at the Umbitch. She screamed, and the bird let out a horrible, bassy screech as it hovered there, wings flapping hard enough to send feathers everywhere, pecking furiously at the woman's face. She raised her arms, wand nowhere to be found, and tried to bat the crow away to no avail.

With a sigh, Tonks leveled her wand and disintegrated the bird with a single spell. That it resulted in Umbridge being showered in blood and feathers was no concern of hers.

"My EYE!" The toad wailed, hands clapping over her left eye as she fell to her knees. Tonk snapped out a muffliato on her, to make sure her horrid wailing didn't attract more creatures to them again.

"Quiet!" She stomped up to the silently wailing woman and hoisted her back onto her feet.

"You idiot, you're endangering us all with your stupidity. Now, shut your trap and get a move on, or stay here and rot. Your choice." She hissed furiously. Then, Tonks pivoted on the spot and marched back up to the front of the group.

"Let's get out of here before she attracts more attention." She said to no one in particular. Scrimgeour gave her a measuring look, nodded his head, and they got moving again.

Umbridge could be heard quietly whimpering and cursing at them from behind, which means she must _really_ be straining her vocal chords. The muffliato she put on her wasn't exactly weak or half-assed.

They came around a wrecked carriage, and there, beyond a massive archway, was a crowd of no less than fifty hooded things, kneeling at the foot of a beast jarringly similar to the one that had first attacked them in the plaza, strung up on a cross. This one had noticeably larger antlers, and its body was covered, head to toe, with lacerations that dripped into the growing puddle at its feet.

The largest of the hooded things bent down, filling a goblet with the blood of the creature, then turned and held it up before the kneeling crowd. It's arms, where it wasn't covered by its overly large hooded cloak, were wrapped in bloodied bandages; tufts of fur poking through. A pair of eyes, glowing red as the Moon, could be seen beneath its hood. A low hum rose up from the crowd, ebbing and flowing to a tune that Tonks felt was vaguely familiar but couldn't place.

"It's a congregation." She realized with a start. One of the congregation rose to its feet, stepping forward to drink from the chalice of blood, before returning to its spot. Another rose immediately after to repeat the process. After the third, the large one turned to refill the goblet.

"They seem intelligent, at the very least." Kingsley mused, rubbing his chin in thought. "Do you think we could risk attempting contact with them?"

Tonks wasn't sure about that, and judging by the dubious looks on the others' faces, she wasn't the only one.

"Of course _you_ cannot." A voice she was past loathing and at the point of being violently enraged by every time she heard it crooned arrogantly from behind them. Apparently Umbridge had remembered that she was a witch, found her wand, and undone the muffliato she'd thrown on her.

Joyous day.

"Making contact with the denizens of this place is the responsibility of the _diplomatic attache_. And, as _I_ am the only remaining member of said attache, it falls to me to make contact with these brutish creatures." She managed to say all of this in her usual sickeningly fake, overly saccharine way, standing as proud and tall as she could - which was pitiful, really - despite missing her left eye and being covered in rather deep scratches from that giant crow she was unable to fend off for herself.

Tonks was fully prepared to rip into the woman, telling her in no uncertain terms how incredibly stupid, useless, and arrogant she was, but swallowed it all down. If this horrid _bint_ wants to get herself killed, then more power to her. Let Scrimgeour or Proudfoot speak up and stop her if they care.

Apparently, neither of them did, and after a moment of silence the Umbitch sniffed haughtily and marched towards the congregation of hooded things. The leader of the congregation spotted her the moment she removed the stealth spells Proudfoot must have put on her.

It's ruby eyes bored into her, slowly lowering the chalice to the ground at its feet. Then it reared back and let out an ear piercing shriek. Short and sharp, and then again. The congregation rose to their feet, turning to regard the squat, pink person approaching them.

"They're going to kill her." Shack muttered, casting his eyes about to see if anyone would argue with him. No one did.

They didn't step up to stop her either.

"Greetings, denizens of Yharnam!" Umbridge nearly shouted at them. "I am Madame Umbridge, Senior Undersecretary to -"

One of the hooded things leapt forward, faster than Tonks would have expected, claws digging into Umbridge's arms and hurling her around and into the congregation itself. She screamed threats and curses at them for a moment, then the congregation converged and her screams cut off with a wet gurgle.

A moment later, her mangled corpse, only recognizable due to the shreds of pink that clung to it, was heaved forward and lashed unceremoniously to the base of the cross; her blood now pooling alongside the creatures as communion started again like nothing had happened.

"I don't know about the rest of you," Tonks started with a grim smile. "But I don't feel the least bit guilty about letting that happen."

"We never speak of this again. If we survive this, it doesn't go in any of our reports. As far as we're concerned, Madame Umbridge got separated from us and picked off by the fire wielding creature from earlier. Understood?" Scrimgeour laid it out, and everyone nodded along. Kingsley was a bit hesitant, but she knew he wouldn't rat them out to the department.

Dumbledore maybe, but Dumbledore is the forgiving sort, so it ought to work out.

"Now, here's how we're getting past this congregation: Dawson, you-" He cut himself off with a curse, whipping his wand up to aim at something behind them.

Tonks whirled around, and saw that coming up from behind them was a procession of more of the hooded things, carrying several of the dead lycans they'd killed earlier; presumably to be added to the communion cross.

The leader of the procession had stopped, the rest following suit, at the sound of Scrimgeour's voice. It looked _right at him_. Tonks prayed that their stealth spells were holding well. For several long, tense seconds, the two groups stared at each other.

Sweat beaded on Tonks' brow.

She licked her lips.

The leader of the procession raised its head further, sniffing loudly, and Tonks cursed internally as she realized what they forgot to include in their stealth spells: scent eliminators!

It reared back and let out a sharp cry, echoed immediately by the leader of the congregation behind them.

"They can smell us!" Tonks shouted, dropping her stealth spells to rain hell down on the procession boxing them in. The leader of the procession took a diffindo to the throat that sent its head spiraling through the air, the one immediately to its left taking a bludgeoner straight to the heart. It crumpled on the spot, not dead, but coughing and retching violently on its hands and knees. Blood splattered at its feet, and then it collapsed flat on its malformed face.

"Tonks, Shacklebot, Dawson, and Cerric hold off the newcomers. The rest of you, with me! Hit the congregation!" Scrimgeour barked out in short order, and spellfire rained out from the eight Aurors at the rapidly encroaching creatures.

Tonks, Shack, Dawson, and Cerric made a line; standing shoulder to shoulder. Tonks threw out spells as quickly and accurately as she could, downing creature after creature in rapid succession, but more just kept taking their place.

In moments they were almost upon them, and they started retreating. Backpedaling as quick as they could without tripping to maintain distance. Tonks glanced over her shoulder and saw that Scrimgeour and the others were pressing forward using a combination of blasting hexes and banishers, and she started doing the same to keep the things away from them. Her blasting hexes turned the creatures into a fine red mist, shards of shattered bone and teeth making fine shrapnel, and the banishers pushed the front of the procession back, to either be trampled or carried aloft by the rest.

She realized her mistake when one of her blasting hexes went low, impacting the cobblestones instead of a creature, and rather than a fine red mist that dissipated almost immediately, a cloud of rocks and dust shot up, totally obscuring their vision.

"Bollocks!" She cursed, whipping her wand around to summon a gust of wind to push away the cloud of dust and give them line of sight again, but it was too late.

The procession had seen their opportunity and taken it. They rushed forward, a tide of claws and teeth. She only managed to get off a single banisher before they were on her, claws raking across her chest, her arms, leaving burning pain in their wake.

She cried out, stumbling back, and the thing that had reached her followed, tackling her head on and sending her sprawling, and then it was on her, its putrid breath washing over her as it swiped across her face and neck, sending red blooming across her vision.

She thought she heard someone yelling her name, but she didn't know who.

She let out an inarticulate scream of rage, determined not to die here. _Not like this!_ She got her wand up between her and the creature and willed it to _die._ There was a flash of sickly green light, and the thing slumped over, dead. She rolled it off, sitting up enough to send another jet of deadly green light into the horde bearing down on them.

Then another.

And another.

And another.

Again and again she brought up that terrible rage, that horrible fury, all her fear and her hatred for these things, this thrice-damned city, and poured it out into one of the worst curses wizardkind had ever invented.

After a time she became aware that she was being moved, and she nearly panicked until she realized it was just Shack, dragging her along behind him as he followed the others.

"Tonks, c'mon. On your feet, we need to _go!_ " She scrambled, losing her footing in the slick blood that lined the cobblestone twice before she got her feet under her.

The congregation had been wiped out, their broken bodies lying in piles before the crucified beast they'd been worshipping at the feet of. Now it was only the procession on their tales.

The bridge ended in a massive portcullis, like something out of a fantasy movie, but just off to the side was a single, totally normal looking wooden door.

Proudfoot tried the nob, bashed his shoulder against it, kicked it, then finally raised his wand and blew the door clean off its hinges.

"Come on!" He shouted, and they followed him through the door and into an incredibly narrow hallway lined with candles and jars of incense. The smell was thick and cloying. It made her eyes water.

Or maybe that was the burning pain she felt radiating out from the myriad cuts and slashes she'd been able to ignore thanks to adrenaline and the high one gets off using Dark Magic.

Her head swam, vision going blurry, and she stumbled into the wall, only just barely managing to catch herself.

"Guys, guys I don't feel so good." She managed to get out before her eyes rolled back and she collapsed.

* * *

 _Author's Note:_ I would apologize for the cliffhanger ending, but I'm not sorry ;) I'm moving along at a break neck pace with this now, and lemme tell ya'll it feels _fantastic!_ I've never had so much fun writing before. I can't promise I can keep this up forever, especially without your feedback, so please! Even if all you have to say is that you liked it, leave your thoughts behind before you leave. If you didn't like it, _please_ tell me why as politely as you can. I wish you all a fond farewell. Until next time!


	6. A Doomed Expedition 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The paper brings terrible news. A rescue is mounted. A decision is made. The Hunt commences.

" _Wake up, Harry."_ She whispered in his ear. He grumbled and rolled over, burying his face in his pillow.

He didn't know where he'd gotten a pillow in the Workshop, but he was grateful to have it now as it could help muffle Evelyn's insistent voice. He hadn't gotten a lick of sleep for all the nightmares - memories, really - that had plagued him. Par for the course for him, sadly.

Bloody hell, but he is tired of always being _tired._

" _Come now, Dear Harry. It's not like you to_ hide _."_ Her lips brushed against his ear, the familiar tingles her touch always evoked racing down his spine and doing more to wake him up than her teasing words.

"Can't it wait?" He groused sleepily.

" _Oh no Harry, I'm afraid not. You have_ work _to do."_

The curtains around his bed shot open, and he flew up onto his feet, breathing hard.

"Evelyn?" He trembled, looking around the fourth year boys dormitory in Gryffindor Tower for any sign that he wasn't alone.

The sun was only just starting to rise in the east. His yearmates were all snug and warm, peacefully sleeping in their beds.

No one was there.

 _She_ wasn't there.

He's not in the Workshop. He's free. He's _free_. He's home.

"It was just a dream." He reassured himself, trying to ignore how the shadows deepened, turned to something more than simple darkness as they crept and danced to an unheard beat. They were mocking him, he knew it. He went to his trunk to get dressed, grabbing the first set of clothes he saw and throwing them on.

It was as he was reaching into his coat pocket, fingers just brushing against the soothingly smooth glass of a blood vial, that he realized he'd put his old hunting attire on instead of his Hogwarts uniform. With a growl he yanked his hand out of his pocket and shucked his coat off.

"Don't need that. I don't need it anymore. _I don't._ " He muttered fervently to himself.

This was easier yesterday, in the Hospital Wing. He hadn't had access to his gear and didn't have to fight himself in his own pursuit of _normality_.

 _This_ will never feel normal, he thought, and it sounded an awful lot like Evelyn.

No, no no no, _this!_ Hogwarts, classes, Hermione. A simple education building up to a simple life. _That's_ his new normal, no matter what she says about it! No matter how much more tedious it all felt than he remembered. No matter that his blood is abuzz with an energy he has no outlet for. No matter that he has to hide his unease, his feeling of unbelonging, of _otherness_ , from Hermione at all times, lest she worry herself into an early grave on his behalf.

None of that matters, because -

"You're _gone,_ " He insisted, even as he nearly choked on the gaping hole in his heart she used to occupy. "You have no say in my life anymore."

Finally dressed in his uniform, Harry pulled his Moonlight out from under the sheets and strapped it to his back. He let out a shuddering sigh, already feeling better having it where it belonged.

The unnatural shadows still danced, but a new one had joined in: multifaceted and true, blotting out all light from the eastern window. He turned, and gazing intently through the window at him was an Amygdala.

He swallowed thickly.

"You were probably always there and I just couldn't see you." He declared. The Amygdala disagreed, but he ignored it, grabbed his bookbag, and rushed down the stairs to the common room to wait for Hermione. He sat on a couch facing the roaring hearth, and watched the flames dance as the wood crackled.

Now if only the shadows would dance to the same tune as the fire, everything would be right with the world.

" _Denial is unbecoming of a Hunter, my dear."_ Her voice sounded sourcelessly.

"Maybe." He admitted. "But I'm not a hunter anymore." Her laughter echoed in his head, dark and low and threatening. He shuddered at the sound.

" _You will_ always _be my Kind Hunter."_

A warm flush spread across him, as it always did when she was so possessive of him, and to his shame he actually hoped she was _right_.

He missed her. He missed the life they had built together, locked into a mutual Dream. He missed it like he missed Hermione in the early months of the Nightmare. Like a wanderer in the desert misses the refreshing taste of blood- _water_ , misses the refreshing taste of ice cold _water_.

All his time in the Dream he had yearned to return to Hogwarts and see Hermione again, but he had always imagined it differently than how it is. He'd imagined Evelyn would be _with him_. That they could tease Hermione together. That she'd be by his side as he handled the blasted Tournament, encouraging him with a heated look, a word, a touch. Always raising him back up higher than he thought possible no matter how low he'd fallen.

Now here he is. Sat glumly on a couch in the common room, mourning something he never had. All because _she_ couldn't leave well enough alone! His hands clenched into fists.

"Why didn't you listen to me, Evelyn?" He choked out, tears welling in his eyes. "Why wasn't I enough?"

She didn't answer him. The shadows danced to the same beat as the flames.

He buried his face in his hands and cried.

Some time later, Harry, dry eyed, and Hermione, giving him worried looks, walked into the Great Hall hand in hand. There was no rush of heat and electricity when they touched. Just the simple pleasure of soft skin on his own.

That's okay.

At first, there weren't any with Evelyn either. That came later. After Rom. After the Blood Moon. When the world stopped making sense and the only thing they had to hold onto was each other, and they clung clung _clung_. Like drowning men to a raft.

The post owls arrived as they were dishing themselves up some breakfast, dropping newspapers on each of their plates.

"A special issue of the Prophet? What's this about?" Hermione wondered, but Harry wasn't listening. The world had drifted away, a vague ringing in his ears drowning out the noise of the Great Hall. His hands shook as he reached out to the paper and unfolded it.

_Lost Island-Nation of Yharnam Returns! Ministry Expedition Goes Missing!_

_An anonymous source in the Department of Mysteries itself has confirmed what we all suspected: something has gone terribly wrong for the diplomatic expedition that had been gathered seemingly without cause early Tuesday morning. It turns out the expedition had been sent to the lost island-nation of Yharnam! The island purportedly reappeared sometime Halloween night, amidst unknown circumstances. The Unspeakables have confirmed that two of their number were a part of the expedition, and that they are the only ones so far to have returned. Where the rest of the expedition, numbering at twenty-seven witches and wizards, have gone and what fate has befallen them is unknown at this time. Continued on page 3._

"No! You can't ask this of me! _You can't!_ " Harry raged desperately as he paced in front of the Headmaster's desk.

"We cannot abandon those people there, Harry. If one has the power to save a life, then they must _use it._ " He insisted, twinkle conspicuously absent from his flinty blue eyes. Harry clutched at his hair, pulling on it, using the pain to ground himself.

"I was free of it, Albus! _I WAS FREE!_ And it-" He collapsed into a chair, voice shrinking into something small and childish. "It's not _fair. It's just not fair!_ I was supposed to be free of all this. Gehrman promised!" He whispered brokenly.

He hung his head, blinking hard as tears raced down his cheeks to splatter against his shoes.

"It wasn't supposed to follow me _home_." Harry's voice broke, the last word coming out as a sob.

"Harry," Albus' hand came down on his shoulder. "My boy, I am truly sorry."

Harry leapt to his feet, pushing the Headmaster's hand away.

"What do you know of it? Hm! What do you know of it to be so bleeding _sorry_ for? I showed you nothing! _Less_ than nothing! You barely got so much as a taste of what I _lived_ for nine long months!" He spat, glaring balefully at the man that would _dare_ ask him - ask him to -

He couldn't finish the thought.

"I know more of it than you think, my boy." Albus intoned softly, regret of such a terrible kind shining in his eyes that it looked out of place on a face so young.

"Yeah?" Harry challenged, angrily swiping away his tears before crossing his arms. He seriously doubts that's the case.

The messengers in Albus' pensieve watched their argument fretfully. Harry wasn't sure if they really understood what they were seeing or not, or if watching his and Albus' argument was like a termite trying to make sense of a lover's spat for them.

Albus sighed heavily, leaning his hip against his desk.

"In 1899 I met a young wizard named Gellert Grindelwald. You know how that story ends, but you do not know how it began. You cannot imagine how his ideas caught me. _Inflamed me_. He spoke to the petty hatreds that lived in my heart, and I took up the sword in his name. For a time. I carried a flame for him for much, much longer." The words took something out of the Headmaster, deflating him, and Harry saw him as he was: an old man made young again, doing his best to atone for a past he's ashamed of and unsure if he's succeeding.

He uncrossed his arms and leaned on the back of a chair to listen.

"At first, Gellert was content seeking the Deathly Hallows, but we would soon come to learn that there were far greater powers in the world than those paltry relics." He twisted his bone white wand around in his fingers, a faraway look in his eyes.

"There are catacombs beneath the city of Plovdiv, in Bulgaria." He started quietly, as if afraid someone would overhear. "These catacombs predate the city by tens of thousands of years, and they contain - _horrors_ , the likes of which I have not seen before or since. Until, that is, you showed us that memory."

"You found a Pthumerian crypt." Harry breathed. "I can hardly believe it."

"Neither could we, when we found it." Albus smiled, a small, brittle thing far too full of pain to be something worth preserving, and yet he held onto it regardless.

"We plunged into those forgotten catacombs with the frightful confidence of the young and brilliant. We thought we were invincible; that we could handle any challenge we found there in our pursuit of knowledge and power." He chuckled bitterly.

"How fitting it is that the thing that broke my resolve and sent me screaming from that accursed place, away from the man I loved, all the way back home to England, was finding _exactly what we were looking for_."

"What did you find?" Harry nearly begged, desperately hoping it wasn't what he thought it was.

"At the time, I could not make sense of it. Gellert came to call it the 'Truth of the Cosmos' in later years." Harry stared at his Headmaster with wide eyes, a new understanding of the man blooming in his mind like a lumenflower.

"I did not see as much as he did, did not _care to._ It was not until I witnessed the unspeakable horrors of his fortress in 1945 that the messengers took up residence in my pensieve." He paled dramatically, eyes glazing over as he got lost in the memory.

"As terrible as the memory you showed me was, it _pales_ in comparison to what I witnessed that day." He whispered. Harry believed him. That memory had been tame compared to what came later, and he could only imagine what horrors a Dark Wizard like Grindelwald would be capable of conjuring with the right insights. It would make simple beasts almost laughable in comparison.

"How are you still _sane_?" Harry demanded. The Headmaster chuckled darkly, coming back to the moment and out of whatever terrible place he had just been in his own mind.

"For a time, I wasn't." There was a glint in the man's eye now, not the twinkle as he knew it, but that sharp edge of madness he saw in Alfred's eyes when he asked, oh so innocently, to have that spare invitation Harry had.

It was the sparkle in Evelyn's eyes as she twirled around and through the poor souls trapped in the Hunter's Nightmare, rending them of life and limb and laughing all the while.

It's the same thing he fears seeing in the mirror. A reflection of the knowing that presents as madness to the ignorant and afraid.

"I spent three long years in an asylum being worked over by the very best mind healers in the country after fleeing the catacombs. Two of them ended up becoming patients there themselves after treating me." He said matter of factly, but Harry could see the regret in his eyes. Albus wished dearly that those people hadn't had to suffer on his account.

Harry could relate. The number of times Evelyn had stepped in to take a blow meant for _him_ …

"Why are you telling me all this?" Harry whispered, appreciative of his Headmaster's openness but confused by it in equal measure. Never in all the years he'd known him has the Headmaster been so open with him.

"My point, Harry, is that you are demonstrably stronger than I am." The Headmaster declared unquestionably; as if his assertion was a fundamental truth of reality. Blood held power, Hunter's were doomed, and Harry was stronger than Albus _fucking_ Dumbledore.

"What? No I'm not. I'm barely holding it together as it is!" He clamped his mouth shut. He hadn't meant to say that out loud.

"And I utterly _failed_ to hold myself together." Albud retorted. "I only caught a glimpse in those catacombs compared to what you have seen and learned, my boy. That little glimpse broke me, where your total _immersion_ in it failed to do the same to you." Harry scoffed, refusing to admit how much sense Albus was making at that moment.

"You can do this. You can face your fears and come out all the stronger for it." The Headmaster insisted with the kind of passion only the truly fanatical can achieve. Harry wondered what he had done to inspire that kind of blind faith in the man.

Albus was wrong. He was wrong about him. He can't do what he's asking without it breaking him. He _can't_. He's not afraid. That's not the problem.

He's _eager_.

He can hear the call of the Blood howling in his veins like never before, crying out for him to take up arms and partake in communion once more. To Hunt, to slaughter, to drink deep and be _transformed._

He can't do that, can't he see? If he gives in now he'll never be able to _stop!_

But, can he live with himself if he doesn't at least _try?_ Are the lives of those people worth so little to him?

"Fine." He huffed out. "I'll rescue the thrice-damned expedition that should have _never_ been sent to begin with!"

"Good." Albus smiled brightly, that glint of knowing madness back in his eye. "I was rather hoping I wouldn't have to go alone."

* * *

Harry tried to argue, to beg, to plead, but not even appealing to his various responsibilities so much as made a dent in Albus' determination to see this through personally. It would be admirable if Harry wasn't convinced this was a colossal mistake.

"Harry." He eventually snapped, patience well and truly strained. That got him to stop and really listen. He'd never heard Albus snap at _anyone_ before.

"I am going. That is not in question." He softened suddenly, unexpectedly. "I have allowed you to brave far too many dangers alone in the past. No longer. I said you have my support, and _I meant it._ "

Okay, Harry really didn't know how to argue with _that_. Especially since it made him feel so _warm_ to have the other man's support in deed as well as in word.

"Fine," he eyed the Headmaster from head to toe; taking in his enormous silver beard, long hair, and garish flowing robes.

"But, you're gonna need some gear and a haircut." Albus was nodding along until the end there.

"Haircut? What's wrong with my hair?"

"Too easy to grab. A determined foe could use your beard to choke you to death if given half a chance. If you're going to Yharnam, they have to go." He insisted, arms crossed. He might be letting Albus come along on this against his better judgement, but he'd be _damned_ if he let him make this any more dangerous than it needs to be for him.

If they're doing this, they're doing it _his_ way or not at all.

The Headmaster stroked his beard thoughtfully for a moment, then nodded his head decisively. He took up his wand, swished it around his head, and the vast majority of his beard and hair fluttered to the floor.

Harry blinked, astonished at how drastic of a change it really was.

For as long as he'd known him, Albus had been the eccentric wizened wizard. The eccentricity was still there in his garish robes, but without the Merlin styled beard and hair, he almost looked … normal.

It was strange and he wasn't sure he liked it.

Albus examined himself in a mirror for a moment, then turned to him with a blinding smile.

"I had forgotten what being handsome felt like." He smiled boyishly, and Harry decided that he could come to like this new version of his Headmaster.

"Right," he snorted. "Now you just need better gear than that getup."

"What do you have in mind?" Albus asked, perfectly serious once again.

"Perhaps this would suit his needs, Kind Hunter?" Marie's melodic voice sounded from the doorway. They both turned, and there she was; strolling through the door with a bundle in her hands. Following in her wake was a short, blonde girl with wide blue eyes, dressed to the nines in an outfit that made Albus' tastes seem tame in comparison, and yet somehow Harry found her less painful to look at than the Headmaster on the whole.

A woman's touch really works miracles, he supposes.

The girl carried a bundle as well, and both she and Marie had nearly identical serene smiles as they approached them. Marie glided up to Albus, curtsied slightly, and presented him with her bundle, which Harry belatedly realized was a set of standard hunter's attire, folded up.

"May this serve you well in your Hunt this day." He smiled kindly at her, thanking her quietly.

Meanwhile, the girl, who Harry thinks he _might_ have seen in the hallways at some point, skipped right up to him, meeting his eyes unflinchingly and unerringly.

Something moved in Harry's peripheral, and he saw the shadowy nothingness reaching towards the girl, curling almost lovingly around her without touching her. He forced himself to focus on the girl standing expectantly in front of him and not the unnatural way the shadows framed her.

"Hello, Harry Potter." She said serenely, and Harry wondered, in a moment of total bewilderment, if she was doing an impression of Marie or if he had finally gone completely insane.

"Hello," He started dubiously, unable to shake the disquiet this innocuous girl had managed to plant in his heart.

"I'm afraid we haven't met." He said after a moment, accepting the bundle that she thrust out at him. He glanced at it and his heart stuttered painfully in his chest when he recognized the holy shawl on top. Gascoigne's garb. He hasn't worn this in a _long_ time. To be handed it now, by a girl so very similar to the one he failed so utterly and completely so long ago set his hands to shaking and sucked all the moisture from his mouth.

"There's no need to be afraid, Harry Potter. We're meeting now." Her smile widened but lost none of its serenity, and Harry had to force himself not to take a step back as the shadows danced excitedly around her, crossing over his vision, linking together into a rune that was startlingly familiar and yet somehow changed.

"I'm Luna Lovegood. I'm Marie's assistant for the day!" She chirped, some excitement underpinning the still unsettling calm that the girl wore like a cloak.

"Really?" He asked, caught off guard. He wondered how they met, but decided that that was a story for another time. The girl nodded her head solemnly and excitedly, and Harry wasn't sure how she managed to be both of those things simultaneously. It was rather impressive, really. Disquieting, but impressive.

"Mhm!" Then she canted her head to the side, regarding him with fresh intensity that had his heart beating just a tad bit faster in his chest.

"It's strange," she started quietly, seemingly more to herself than anything else. "When I look at you I can _almost_ see a rune; hazy and shuddering, as if it can't decide if it should exist or not yet. Not at all like the Moon or Marie or myself. Do you know why that is?"

Her eyes, like great oceans of sparkling water reflecting the Moon on a clear night, bored into his own, and even though there was nothing threatening about her stance, her expression, or her words, he felt his palms itch for the comforting weight of his sword.

This is ridiculous! He shook himself and tried for a kind smile. She's a barely there waif of a girl, he's got no reason to feel threatened by her in the least!

"I'm sorry to say that I don't know why that is." She finally blinked, and Harry felt some of the tension leave him.

"Lying is unbecoming, especially to oneself." The girl intoned seriously, and the tension that had just left him came back sevenfold.

"Does the Headmaster need a weapon?" She asked lightly.

The question threw him for enough of a loop that he forgot how unsettled he was for a moment. He considered it shortly before shaking his head.

"He doesn't have the Blood. He won't be able to make use of anything I can offer him. His wand will have to suffice." It will _have to_. He doesn't want to be the one to explain to the world that Albus Dumbledore is dead and it's _his fault_.

The girl pouted and Harry tried and failed not to find it utterly adorable.

"Oh, poo! I was really hoping to see the Headmaster go running around with some giant sword or axe of some kind. Wouldn't it have been hilarious, Marie?" She turned the force of her pout on the Doll, who looked faintly amused.

"Perhaps if he was still old, it would have been quite humorous." The Headmaster himself laughed a little at the mental image that spawned. Harry wasn't amused. All he could see was the frozen roof of a desiccated castle, a giant of a man rising slowly, jerkily, to his feet as the storm around them stilled unnaturally. He hadn't laughed then, either.

"Wait," Harry interjected, dread panic bubbling in his gut. "See? You two weren't planning on coming as well, were you?" He demanded ardently. If they thought he was about to risk _another_ little girl's life in that hellish place then they have _another thing coming!_ He learned his god _damn_ lesson the first time.

"No, Kind Hunter." Marie held a hand up, silently asking him to be at peace. He took a deep breath and tried to banish his budding panic.

"It is the Hunter's place to Hunt, and the Caretaker's to caretake. We will be staying, and we will be watching."

"We'll be cheering for you both all the way, Harry Potter. Headmaster Dumbledore." Luna added.

Harry took in a deep breath through his nose, let it out slowly, and felt his panic finally subside.

"Right. Good. Yeah, got myself an audience now. Gonna put on a right good show." He muttered, snorting to himself at the end.

Albus did him the courtesy of raising some privacy wards for him to change behind while he did the same in his chambers, and in short order Harry felt they were ready to go.

Albus was running his hands over the long grey coat he was wearing with something resembling fondness.

"This reminds me of the fashion of my youth. I really am a younger version of myself, now." He chuckled, and Harry's mind whirled around and around that sentence for a moment, wondering almost frantically if it's more than the Headmaster's body that has been made younger. Has his mind been at all affected?

After a long moment he managed to cast the thought aside.

"How are we getting there?" He asked, tired of all this preparation and confusion and irrational fear this morning has brought him and wanting to get this _over with_. The sooner they go, the sooner he'll be returning to Hermione and classes and his utterly normal, mundane life.

One last night of the Blood, The Hunt, and then _never again._ His hands were shaking, but it wasn't fear that set his heart racing.

"Right," Albus said, joviality draining away to be replaced with an iron constitution; all seriousness and the readiness for action, and Harry knew that he was looking at the man that had taken down Grindelwald in that moment and not his Headmaster.

"Yharnam is inscrutable and unplottable. Portkeys and apparation are out of the question. I was thinking we take a boat. Easier to transport the wounded that way."

"No!" Harry practically shouted, eyes wide with fear. "No, a boat won't work."

"Whyever not?" Albus asked, baffled by the strength of Harry's refusal.

"There are - _things_ in the water around Yharnam. Terrible things. We'd never make it." He still remembered his attempts at escape, in the beginning; before despair turned to rage turned to defiant determination. How he ignored Evelyn's warnings and set out on the first boat he could figure out how to captain. How the _things_ rose up out of the ocean, their multitude of mutilated limbs reaching, grabbing, pulling, _tearing and burning as he screamed and cried and begged for the end long before it came._

No. Never again. He'll leave those people to die and not feel a _lick_ of guilt for it before he risks the ocean again.

Albus hummed thoughtfully, watching him with sharp eyes that saw too much.

"Very well. Then we take brooms."

They made to leave, and Marie and the Luna girl watched them go; Marie utterly calm, inclining her head in farewell, while the girl waved exuberantly.

"May you find your worth in the cosmos above." Marie intoned just before they were out the door. Harry tripped over nothing, whipping around to pin her with a wide eyed stare. She just smiled, the same as the girl at her side; utterly serene and unbothered as always. The familiarity of it was a balm to his soul in the face of her strange farewell.

* * *

"Well," Albus sighed as he picked himself up off the cobblestone street they'd crashed into.

"That could have certainly gone smoother." They'd landed in a narrow, dark alleyway penned in by looming tenement housing. Blood soaked rats scurried in the gutters, and the stench of decay and the iron tang of blood was heavy in the air.

Not even ten feet away, a baby carriage stood empty, stained red.

"I had a feeling something like that might happen." Harry glowered at the tortured broomstick at his feet. "It's safe to say we won't be able to use the backup brooms we brought with us either."

Albus took one of the shrunken brooms out of his pocket, and it was just as twisted and mangled as the ones they rode in on. He dropped it into the gutter with a scowl.

"It would seem you're right. Have you any idea how we'll get back when we find the survivors?"

"If." Harry muttered distractedly, examining their surroundings. "I have an idea, but let's focus on finding them first."

"Too right, my boy. Where should we start?" Somewhere in the distance, something howled.

"I think there's a rather large plaza somewhere in this direction." Harry pointed down the alley, away from the bloodied baby carriage. "It would have made for a good place to land for the expedition, given their numbers. Stay close, stay alert, trust nothing that moves and isn't clearly human. _Especially_ don't trust anything that _looks_ human."

With that, they set off down the alley. It was so dark in the shadow of the tenements that Albus was tempted to light his wand, but he knows better. It would only draw attention to them and slow his reaction time as he'd need to deactivate the spell before he could cast anything useful.

It'd be a matter of a tenth of a second, but in battle that's often all it takes.

They crossed several alleys before hitting a dead end and being forced to turn. Harry looked both ways, looked long and hard at the unnatural Blood Moon in the too crowded sky, and chose the left path.

Albus followed without question. In this place, Harry was the expert, and Albus was not too proud to follow the lead of one so much younger than him in matters they were clearly so knowledgeable in. He'd have never become a teacher otherwise.

The street was slick, and when Albus looked down he saw the cobblestones glinting vermillion in the pale light of the Moon.

In his distraction he tripped over a small wooden crate holding a dozen small bottles of what he _swore_ was blood. Delivered to people's houses like milk. He looked, and sure enough similar crates were in front of every door he could see, sometimes more than one.

"They were having _blood_ delivered to their homes by the _cratefull?"_ He exclaimed quietly.

"In Yharnam, more blood is produced than alcohol, because the former is more intoxicating." Harry told him as he stopped to gather a few bottles from a particular crate.

"Not often you find saint's blood just lying about in the street. Usually it's just that horrid commoner swill." He stashed the bottles away in his coat and ambled on down the street.

"Harry," Albus started cautiously. "What do you intend to _do_ with that blood?"

"Ah," Harry stopped, turning sheepishly and without meeting his eyes. "Well, the blood has healing properties. It'll come in handy if I get injured."

Albus pursed his lips. That might be true enough, but it's not the actual reason he took them. He can't seriously be considering drinking the stuff can he?

He decided he didn't want to know.

Not much later they exited the narrow alleyways into a rather large plaza, just as Harry had said they would. The place was littered with the corpses of what looked like mutated wolves to Albus, which he suspected might have a more tragic origin than they appear. They'd clearly been felled with spellfire. In the center of the plaza was the body of a great beast, probably three or four stories tall, riddled with the tell-tale pockmarks of battle magic.

Not even a few feet from the mouth of the alley was the body of a wizard, throat ripped out, face frozen in terror, pinned beneath the body of one of the wolf-like creatures. He rushed over to it.

"Harry, look! One of the expedition members." He kneeled next to the man's head, uncaring of the blood he's getting on his knees, looking for - he's not exactly sure what. Harry planted his boot in the wolf-like creature's side and heaved it off. Pinned to his robes, covered in blood, was an obliviator's badge.

"Who was he, do ya reckon?" Harry asked, scanning their surroundings rather than examine the body.

"An obliviator. They don't have any official combat training. He didn't stand a chance." Albus intoned sadly. He reached out to close the man's eyes, to give him some semblance of peace in death.

"It looks to me like he tried to flee from that cleric beast and got caught by this scourge beast here instead. Bad luck, that." Bad luck indeed. "Why would they send people without combat training to _Yharnam_ of all places?"

"You have to remember that Yharnam is a mystery to the rest of the world. Aside from you, myself, Miss Granger, and the survivors of this expedition, _no one_ knows that Yharnam is the way it is."

"Alright, fair, but then why send people that can't defend themselves into something with no idea what awaits them? That's almost worse, in my mind. The former is just carelessness, while the latter is a lack of critical thinking. A careless genius can accomplish wonders, but one who lacks critical thinking is nothing but a danger to themselves and everyone around them."

Albus sighed deeply. The boy was not wrong.

"The Ministry is not as it should be, despite my best efforts to shape it into something we could be proud of over the years."

Harry just shook his head and moved to inspect the rest of the plaza. Albus followed, looking for anything, any sort of sign he could see that could point them in the right direction.

The plaza was awash in blood. Around the - what did Harry call it? - cleric beast, a great puddle grew. Even now, what must be days after it was slain, the blood crept further without signs of stopping. Rising up out of the blood, seemingly at random, were stone-like helixes. Sometimes in pairs, sometimes alone, and all the color of blood. As if the blood itself was turning to stone.

Albus bent to pick one up. It was cold as the grave, and when he looked closely it glinted slightly.

"Found a blood stone shard, have you?" Harry asked.

"So it _is_ the blood hardening into these stones. How incredibly peculiar." He pocketed the shard along with a few more he could see for further study. When he looked up Harry was standing on top of the cleric beast's corpse, surveying the area.

"There was a helluva fight here." He announced. "Quite a few wizards died. I can see their bodies here and there, or what's left of them anyway. I think the survivors went that way." He hopped down and started up what looked to be the main street connected to the plaza.

The street was dotted with the mostly eaten remnants of scourge beasts, and Albus thought he knew what clued Harry in.

Just down the street was a small pack of scourge beasts picking at some unidentifiable pile of flesh.

Harry drew his sword and continued towards them without breaking stride. They noticed them after a moment, turning crimson eyes their way. They snarled, sending bits of blood and spittle flying. The closest one darted at Harry, moving far faster than Albus expected, and in the same moment he raised his wand, Harry swung his sword down on the beast's head. His sword went straight through, splitting the thing from head to navel, and lodged itself in the cobblestone street with a deafening clang.

Harry drew that extraordinarily long pistol of his and fired a single shot that blew a chunk out of another scourge beast's head as it ran at him. It slumped to the ground and slid a short distance, dead.

Albus flicked his wand, and several nearby lampposts rose into the air, grew a multitude of additional, incredibly sharp points at his direction, and then flew down and skewered the remaining three creatures, pinning them to the street. Two died within moments, while the third struggled right up until Harry relieved it of its head.

"You'll have to teach me how you did that, Albus." Harry laughed, absolutely delighted. "It was beautifully executed."

"It was only a simple transfiguration and some slight telekinesis. Nothing too impressive, really." He declared with false modesty. In truth, the control necessary to do what he just did against a single target accurately is usually above the average witch or wizards ability. To hit three moving targets simultaneously is something only the truly exceptional could accomplish.

Albus had long since grown numb to his own exceptional power and skill. He no longer surprised or impressed himself, and he didn't care to boast or receive praise for it. But, for Harry to acknowledge the artfulness of his execution made him feel proud of his own abilities for the first time in many, many years.

They strode passed the beasts they just killed, and as they were passing the pile of meat and organs in the street Harry paused. He crouched, rooting around through the viscera without hesitation, and pulled out an obliviators badge.

"How many obliviators did you say there were?" He asked over his shoulder.

"Five." Albus answered promptly. Harry grunted and stood up, tossing the badge back into the pile.

"There's about seven, maybe eight, people in this pile." He stated confidently. Albus didn't want to know how Harry could tell that was the case.

"Guess we know what happened to the obliviators. Wonder what other poor saps died here."

* * *

Scrimgeour crashed through the door into the small Chapel, scanning the space inside as quickly as he could. They'd come through a side door into a round, raised dais in the heart of the place. At the exact center of the dais was a strange blue lamp, hanging from a crooked pole about two feet off the ground. Lining the walls were dozens upon dozens of enormous earthenware pots, each with a wick burning away at their top.

Incense. The cloying scent was so thick he nearly choked on it, but it was vastly preferable to the stench of smoke and rot in the streets.

Hanging from the ceiling was a staggeringly ornate chandelier, half lit, half burnt out, that would have barely been up to the task of lighting the place without the help of the multitude of incense pots lining the chapel walls. At one end of the chapel was a small door leading to a back room, shrouded in darkness. At the other, a set of cathedral style double doors hung open.

He snapped his wand at the doors and they flew shut with a _bang_.

In an alcove across from where he came in was another set of double doors, these ones firmly shut.

And there, nestled into the shadows between the pots, was what at first glance looked to be a pile of ratty cloth. But then it moved; raising its head to look at him with sightless eyes. He leveled his wand, ready to strike it down before it could pounce.

"Oh! Hello there, whoever you are." Scrimgeour hesitated, his aim wavering as the thing smiled at him, waving him forward. "Come in, quickly! I can hear the beasts on your tail. The incense will ward them off, come in!"

"Clear!" He shouted back to his Aurors as he stepped towards the surprisingly friendly creature. They rushed in after him, Shacklebot and Proudfoot half-carrying, half-dragging Tonks' bloodied and limp form between them.

"Bently, Mcdonnel, secure that back room. Dawson, ward the _hell_ out of the door we just came in. Cerric, Proudfoot, get the other two doors." He barked out his orders without looking away from the … _thing_ that had spoken to him. It's skin was a grey so dark it was almost black, face gaunt, unseeing, jaundiced eyes rotating strangely in their sockets.

"Oh, you've got an injured amongst you?" It worried as Shacklebot did his best to lay Tonks down as gently as he could some distance away.

"How do you know that?" He asked suspiciously. "You're clearly blind."

"I can smell her blood, the poor dear must be in a bad way. Is- is she going to be okay?" Scrimgeour pursed his lips, not entirely sure how to handle this thing's convincingly genuine concern.

"She'll be fine." He insisted, pushing his doubts and fears away as forcefully as he could.

"Well that's fine news! It's so good to have company again. It's been so _long_ since the Blood Moon rose and I wasconvinced I was the last sane person left in Yharnam." It giggled in a way that didn't lend much credence to its own assertions of sanity.

"We're not actually from here." He said for lack of anything else to say, mind elsewhere as he considered where to go, what to _do_ , next. They've got to get _out_ of this accursed place. There has to be a way. _There has to be a way._

"Outsiders?" It warbled out in surprise. "Haven't had any of them in these parts since that kind Hunter came through so very, very long ago."

Bently and Mcdonnel returned from the back room, and Scrimgeour gave them his full attention.

"Anything?"

"Room's empty, just a hatch over a ladder that we locked and warded. There's a table in there we can put Tonks on so Dawson can see to her wounds." Mcdonnel reported, Bently nervously twirling his wand as he eyed the thing dwelling there on the floor.

"Bently, help Shacklebot get Tonks situated. Dawson!" He barked, turning to the other man. "Is that door warded yet?"

"Yessir!" He snapped off another quick spell before turning and rushing to follow Bently and Shacklebot into the back room.

"You're a right professional bunch, aren't you?" Scrimgeour ignored it as he followed the others into the back room.

They laid Tonks out on the table and Dawson wasted no time; casting a half dozen diagnostic and triage spells before Scrimgeour could so much as open his mouth.

It was a rather fortunate twist of fate that one of their three combat medics had survived. He and Cerric hadn't gotten out of that snafu on the bridge unharmed, but their wounds weren't nearly as bad as Tonks' were. They could still fight. Hell, they were still _conscious._

"How is she?" He asked thickly. She was unnaturally pale, almost ashen in complexion; breathing short and shallow as sweat beaded on her forehead. Already the table was slick with her blood. Dawson shot out another half dozen spells, which Scrimgeour recognized as the suture spell, meant to close wounds and stop bleeding. The viscous slashes across her face, neck, arms and chest remained stubbornly open and weeping.

"It's not good." Dawson admitted grimly. "Her wounds wouldn't normally be life threatening, but they're not responding to any of my attempts to close them." He reached into the magically expanded pouch on Tonks' waist that contained her emergency medical supplies: blood replenishers, pain potions, a generalized antidote that cures most common poisons, essence of dittany, and enough sterile gauze to mummify her if need be were pulled out and laid out on the table at her side.

"We have to stop the bleeding. We don't have enough blood replenishers on hand to let her heal naturally, otherwise. Someone help me get her out of these clothes, I need to bandage her wounds."

Shacklebot stepped forward and got to work without a word. Scrimgeour turned and ushered the others out of the room and back into the chapel proper.

Concern for her modesty is a paltry thing at a time like this, but he knows Tonks. Superior officer or not she'll kick him right in his nuts for catching a peep at her. Worse for letting the others see.

"What's the plan?" Cerric asked, Proudfoot helping him bandage a series of long gashes on his arm. He glanced back at the back room, lit now by a swarm of bluebell flames, and sighed. He's exhausted, and his men? He looked around, took in their grim countenances, their sweat soaked clothing, the blood splashed across all of them to one degree or another.

They could all use some rest, and Tonks needs time to heal.

"We make camp here for the night. In the morning, we find a vantage point, find the ocean, and we get our asses home."

* * *

"Cor blimey _everything hurts._ " Tonks groaned when consciousness returned to her. She could feel her wounds _throbbing_ with white hot agony along to the beat of her heart. Flaring out from them was a deep seated burning, like someone had poured acid into her veins. She struggled into a sitting position, arms shaking from the strain of lifting herself as sweat dripped down her nose.

Morgana's muff, she's a mess. She's naked from the waist up save for the bloody bandages wrapped around her chest, shoulder, and left forearm. She blinked, wondering why the world was so _flat_ looking, and reached up to rub at her eyes.

She hissed in pain as soon as she made contact with the bandage wrapped around the left half of her face and over her eye. It didn't feel like she'd lost her eye, thank god, but having the bandage was as good as having lost it if it comes to another fight.

She doesn't need bad depth perception on top of already being an uncoordinated klutz, thank you very much.

She turned to let her legs hang off the edge of the table she was sat on, and spied her partner slumped over against a bookshelf, fast asleep. In the far corner was a ludicrously large wad of used bandages, absolutely soaked through with blood.

Fucking hell, how many times had they had to change her bandages?

She pushed off the table and onto her feet, and immediately regretted it as her head swam and she nearly crumpled on the spot. She held onto the table for dear life, closing her eyes to block out the world that wouldn't stop fecking _spinning._

"Ohh I feel like utter shite," she groaned weakly.

"Tonks?" It must have been enough to rouse Shack, though. "What are you doing? Lay back down." His hands were on here then, helping her back onto the table and into a vaguely comfortable position. Every movement pulled at her wounds sharply, while the effort of moving had her heart racing, which only intensified the burning in her veins. She was panting and keening by the time he had her situated to his liking.

"How-" She coughed raggedly, wiping something sticky off her lip afterwards. "How long was I out?"

"Eighteen hours." He intoned, trying not to sound worried and failing rather spectacularly. Shite. _Shite!_ She must've been hurt worse than she thought to be out that long. What happened? She fall off a cliff?

"You caught a fever, some sort of infection. All we've been able to do is manage your symptoms as best we can with what we have. It's been hard." He blew out a breath, running his hand over his bald head.

Oh. Yeah, that would explain it. Injuries are something the Aurors standard medkits are equipped to handle, but beyond a basic wound disinfectant they didn't carry much to fight infection. They aren't equipped to _treat_ , they're equipped and trained to _triage_ and _stabilize_.

It's a ruddy miracle she's alive at all.

"I'm glad you're awake. That means the fever has gone down, at least." He pressed his hand to her forehead to gauge her temperature and she sighed. His hand felt so cool against her overheated skin.

Shack frowned, taking his wonderfully cool hand away and she pouted at him, having to resist the urge to shift her face into literal puppy dog eyes. That'd only agitate her injuries and fuck up her bandages.

"Let me get Dawson, I'm sure he'll want to look you over now that you're up." He strode through the only door the room had, and Tonks let her head fall back to rest her eyes for a moment.

"Tonks!" Someone shook her rather roughly, and she let out an inarticulate groan. She's well and truly knackered, can't they see? Let a girl get some shuteye for Merlin's sake.

"Tonks, wake up! Something's happening outside, we need to be ready to move. C'mon, give me your arm, yes just like that, now _up you go_." They grunted with the effort of lifting her, while she gasped as her wounds protested the movement.

"Hurts," she mumbled.

"I know, but we have to go." Then they were moving. Every step sent a fresh wave of agony crashing through her. The world spun even with her eyes squeezed shut as tight as she could manage, and she could feel her heart beating like a bird in her chest.

"Hey!" They stopped suddenly, and Tonks only barely kept her feet under her. "Who are you?" The one holding her barked, and Tonks blinked her eyes open as best she could.

They were in a chapel? When the bloody hell had that happened? There was a man in front of them, with short silver hair and a neatly trimmed beard despite not looking a day over twenty-five. His coat was long, grey, and splattered with blood. He had his hands in the air, an interesting looking bone white wand in his right hand. Shack was holding him at wand point.

Arrayed around her and Shack, she noted distantly, were the rest of the remnants of their doomed expedition, also with wands drawn in the man's direction.

"I know it's hard to believe, but I'm Albus Dumbledore. Myself and Harry are here to rescue you." Well that can't be true. Albus Dumbledore is older than dirt and this guy is downright handsome! With his beautiful, blue eyes twinkling away …

Wait, shite - she focused as best she could, tracing the lines and planes of the man's face, and sure enough she _recognized_ him. His skin was smooth, hair and beard shorter, but that was most definitely Albus Dumbledore.

"How'd you get so ruddy _handsome?_ " She demanded, and Dumbledore chuckled.

"A story for another time. For now, let us just calm-"

"Albus!" Another man barged into the chapel, utterly unmindful of how seven wands turned to him at once. This one she recognized immediately as Harry Potter, even with the wide brimmed hat covering his scar, although something about him felt … _off._ He looked older than she thought he should, there was a sword strapped to his back, an elegant pistol on his hip, and he was splattered with even more blood than Dumbledore was.

" _Bloody hell! That is Harry Potter!_ " Dawson muttered, and Scrimgeour ordered them all to stand down.

"Something's coming, I can smell it. An abhorrent abomination is rousing the beasts across the city and bringing them here. We have to-" He stopped, visibly scenting the air, then turned to look right at her with eyes like emerald lightning.

"You've been hurt pretty bad, can you walk?" He came right up to her, looking her up and down critically.

"I dunno, Shack let me down." He looked dubious, but did as she asked. She almost immediately collapsed under her own weight, but Harry darted forward to catch her with surprising speed.

"Whoa now! Alright, that's a no. Let's get you situated." He helped her down onto the short few steps behind her, kneeling down to look her in the eye.

"You lot weren't able to heal her wounds?" He asked the others without looking away from her.

"We did the best we could. Her wounds just wouldn't seal, and we went through almost all of our bandages trying to staunch the bleeding, and when that failed we used up all our blood replenishers. Then the fever set in and-" Dawson cut himself off with a frustrated noise.

Harry nodded, sending the man a kind smile. "I understand how difficult this must be for you. You did the best you could with what you had." He turned that same smile on her now.

"You've been poisoned." He announced, and her heart fell. "That's probably why they couldn't do anything for you. The Ashen Plague is an insidiously ingenious thing. Here," He reached into his coat and retrieved a tin of little white tablets.

"Take one of these, chew it up, and swallow it. I'm warning you: it tastes foul. Don't spit it out." He held the tablet up in front of her lips, and she took it without really thinking about it.

She bit down into it and it released the most potently bitter, acidic flavor she'd ever had the misfortune of tasting, but she choked it down after a moment of struggle.

"Atta girl." Harry patted her unbandaged cheek and her head lolled listlessly to the side. His smile fell, and he took her head in both hands, feeling for a pulse.

"She's lost too much blood, and the poison has weakened her." He said to the others as her heart fluttered weakly in her chest.

"I'm dying, aren't I?" She managed to get out in a weak croak, lips turning up sardonically. To have come this far, survived as long as she did, only to die because she didn't get the antidote in time?

What a waste. It's almost funny, in a macabre sort of way.

His face crumpled with pain, and a desperate, manic sort of fear sparked to life in his eyes.

"Have any of you lot got any blood replenisher left?" He got a chorus of negative replies and cursed under his breath. He took a deep breath, still holding her face in his hands, his thumbs rubbing soft circles over her cheekbones.

"Yes, you are dying." He told her, soft and sad. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

Alright.

So.

That's it then.

Nymphadora Tonks is a dead woman, just waiting for her body to catch up with that fact. How bloody wonderful.

"But," He started, emerald eyes spearing her intently. Entirely without meaning to, she copied his eye color. He didn't so much as flinch at the sudden change.

" _This_ doesn't have to be your end." He uttered seriously. "I can minister some of my blood to you. Yharnam blood. It has healing properties. Enhances your natural abilities; your senses, reflexes, strength and speed. All are increased to levels you couldn't reach without the Blood. But, it comes at a cost."

"What's the cost?" It sounded almost too good to be true. Save your life _and_ become a superhuman? What kind of downside could have him looking so fecking morbid?

"The Blood is cursed. It carries the Scourge of Beasts, which turned everyone in this accursed city into mindless beasts."

"What would be the point in that?" She demanded weakly. "What would be the point in saving myself only to turn into one of those _things_ out there?"

"The Scourge can be overcome by force of will. If your inner strength is unfaltering and true, you will remain you for the rest of your days." He murmured with feverish intensity, his eyes flashing like lightning - such a bright and terrible thing that she wanted desperately to look away but _couldn't_.

"Well, hell. Willpower is kind of my thing. Without it I'd have no control over how I look at any given moment." She smirked. He searched her face for any sort of doubt or reticence, and she knew he wouldn't find any.

She could do this. She knew it in her _bones_ that she was stronger than those things out there, and she's stronger than whatever made them. She can _do this_.

Satisfied with her determination, he nodded his head once. He produced an absolutely enormous metal syringe and jammed it straight through his breastbone and into his heart without hesitation or so much as a grimace. He pulled the plunger back, filling the syringe with the bright vermillion liquid that would save her life and change it in equal measure.

He held the syringe over her thigh, and hesitated.

"Last chance to change your mind." He offered, oddly hopeful, almost as if he _wanted_ her to change her mind.

"Do it." She breathed, bracing herself for the pain. Merlin, she _hates_ needles.

He slid the needle into the thick muscle of her thigh in one smooth motion, pressing gently down on the plunger and sending a flood of warmth and strength the likes of which Tonks had never known rushing through her.

The pain of her wounds vanished, the dull burning in her veins only a distant memory. The world stopped spinning, and she felt like she could _breathe_ again. She gasped, desperately dragging in air, and she could _taste_ the incense on the air as if she had licked it. There was something else, something subtle nearly hidden under the incense. She couldn't place it, and when she sucked in another breath, trying to focus on that odd scent, all that came to mind was the Moon on a clear night. Somehow, she knew that scent came from Harry. The shadows lightened the slightest bit, colors popped more than they had a moment before, and she laughed.

She laughed desperately, overwhelmed with relief and a strength that she couldn't name but felt seeping all the way into the core of her very being.

Harry watched all the while, looking like he couldn't decide if he should weep or laugh with her. He slid the syringe out of her leg as smooth as can be and secreted it away in his coat somewhere. She barely even felt it.

"Feel better?" He asked her with a knowing smirk. She threw her arms around him, pulling him down to smash her lips against his as an answer. He made a surprised sound in his throat, and before he could decide whether to kiss her back or not she pushed him away and jumped onto her feet.

"Better? _Better!?_ I feel better than I ever have in my _life!"_ She ripped the bandages off her head and ran her hands down her face, relishing in the smooth perfection of her skin and the strength coursing through her veins, then threw her arms wide and belted out another profound laugh. She let her arms fall to her sides, and gave Harry a bright, beaming smile.

"You saved my life, mate." She breathed, the realization really dawning on her for the first time. How in the name of Merlin's saggy ball sack is she ever gonna repay him for that?

"Don't start with that." He insisted forcefully. "Not until we get home, at the very least."

"Right," she nodded. "You got a plan for that?"

* * *

"I do, but-" He turned to the main cathedral doors, looking into the distance as he listened to the coming storm of blood and death.

"I have to handle something first. Albus?" The man straightened like a general ready to receive an order. "Hold the door. If anything gets past me, _slaughter it._ "

Albus nodded his head sharply, but said nothing. Harry knew he could count on him. He'd proven himself on the way to Oeden Chapel. He can hold his own. He'd even be able to help if Harry let him, but no.

He's the Hunter here. This is his duty. Let Albus fulfill his and protect the ones they came to save.

If Harry loses himself, Albus will be all that stands between him and them. He knows he can count on him to stop him, if it comes to that.

He pushed through the doors of the chapel, and marched out into the street. Arrayed on and before the great steps leading up into Cathedral Ward was a horde of beast patients and scourge beasts alike, slathering at the mouth in their eagerness for slaughter.

The only slaughter they would find here is their own.

Standing among the snarling and snapping beasts was a man. Tall but slightly hunched, with sallow skin and a silver beard. His head and eyes were obscured by soiled bandages, and his pants were ragged and bloodstained. He wore no other clothing. His arms were drenched in fresh blood up to the elbow, as if he had had his arms buried in some unfortunate victim only moments ago. The man took a deep breath, and chuckled darkly.

"I know that scent. You're a Hunter, and a Moon-Scented one at that. How quaint."

"And you stand among beasts as if you were one. I know your scent, abhorrent creature." Harry returned. "You've made a mistake this night. Coming here. Facing me. I will not show you mercy just because you can _speak_. Not this time."

"Oh, you _are_ a sick puppy!" The man crowed. "You drink the blood of half the town, and now _this?"_ He gestured to the Blood Moon hanging low and menacing over the city.

"And you talk of _beasts?_ You hunters are the real killers!" He roared, voice gaining an unnatural timbre that sent adrenaline rushing through Harry's veins and a slow smile curling at his lips.

The horde of beasts rushed forward as one: an ocean of sharp claws and sharper teeth ready to drag him down and drown him. He drew his Moonlight and his Evelyn pistol, and darted forward to meet them.

A beast patient leapt for him the moment it was close enough, and Harry sidestepped it, bringing his sword 'round in the same motion and neatly bisecting it at the waist to fall dead at his feet.

He moved forward, right into the encroaching horde, and slashed his sword in a wide arc in front of him, cleaving through everything in its path and setting him awash in sweet blood. A laugh burst out of him as he leapt aside a pounce from a scourge beast, slamming his sword down on it with a resounding smash that sent dust and blood up in a cloud around him, and cleaved the beast from shoulder to hip.

Another beast came rushing at him, leaping over the thing his sword was lodged in. He brought up his pistol and fired a shot right through it's eye, snapping its head back and emptying its brains all over the cobblestone behind it.

He ripped his sword free, swinging it back and up and splitting a beast patient open from pelvis to chin, sending a shower of crimson cascading over him. He had no time to enjoy it, forced to dart around a vicious swipe from another scourge beast whose arm he hacked off in spite before he shot it right between the eyes.

He spun, alerted to something behind him by a sense he could not describe, and slashed two quick diagonals across another scourge beast, slamming it into the ground on the second hit and splitting its skull in half.

He stepped over its corpse, carelessly shooting another, smaller beast patient in the heart without looking where it was trying to sneak up on his left, and stalked towards the abhorrent creature. It stood, still and silent as it watched the slaughter of its fellows.

A circle had formed around him now. A clearing, full to bursting with death and blood, the snarling and snapping beasts having learned fear of his steel.

Now? Now he would teach them to fear the cosmos itself. He stashed his pistol and his sword, and brought his hands up over his head, incanting the rite in his mind, the words that are not words calling beyond this plane to a place of infinite darkness, where stars die.

A nova came to life in his hands. A dying star given purpose and life for one last glorious moment before it _exploded_ into a hundred bolts of arcane energy that lashed out in all directions. Where those bolts landed they exploded; scorching and burning and breaking and bursting whatever they touched. Rending the creatures around him down to nothing more than mangled piles of meat and shattered bone leaking yet more blood onto Yharnam's streets.

The beasts on the stairs had halted their approach, some already moving as if to flee, but not the abhorrent beast himself. No, he stood unfazed, uncaring of the chunk that had been taken out of his shoulder, head cocked as they considered each other.

"It's about time I made a move, don't you think?" It said with a smile that was all teeth.

Harry drew his Moonlight and held it aloft, pointing right at the thing in a clear promise: _you're next._

* * *

 _Author's Note:_ And that's Chapter 6! I'm rather happy with how this turned out, but do let me know your thoughts before you go!


	7. A Doomed Expedition 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A worthy Hunt is had. A realization comes. The paths between the stars are more dangerous than expected.

A shudder ran through the thing that looked like a man, and it bent over itself as if in pain.

He hoped it was.

Then, amidst a swirling torrent of wind, and with a deafening screech, it exploded, and the truth of the beast was made manifest.

It stood more than twice as tall as Harry himself, with long arms ending in short, black claws. It stood like a man upon wolf like legs, glaring at him with bloodshine eyes set in a vaguely human face. Covered in long, dark fur that would have dragged on the ground if it were to lay flat, but it's fur stood up on end, whipping and flowing to the ever-shifting winds that encircled the creature. Lightning arced and crackled between its upraised fur in a constant stream, sending shadows skittering across its malignant face.

A living Darkbeast. A worthy Hunt.

Harry ran his hands along his Moonlight's blade; softly, delicately, like a lover. He willed his blade to dance with him in truth this night, to not hide itself behind paltry steel and the runes inscribed by lesser men to contain it any longer. In the dark of his mind, where the shadowy void forever skittered and danced with him, bloomed motes of living light. Like sprites, they joined with the shadows and with him, and Harry knew certainty.

Pale blue Moonlight danced across the blade, a deadly portend given form. A blade of ethereal night within which the stars themselves glittered and shimmered as if enthralled.

He held his Moonlight aloft with both hands, feeling the power of the cosmos thrumming in his veins, eager for the coming battle. The creature eyed his blade with wide, knowing eyes. So old it was that it must have once witnessed this weapon held aloft at the head of the Hunts of Old, when Ludwig stood as the sentinel behind which the innocents of Yharnam took shelter.

It hesitated, and Harry laughed, low and menacing.

"I'm waiting, _beast._ " He taunted in a lilting voice. His smile stretched from ear to ear, a wonderful, terrible thing of mirth and violence.

The abhorrent creature snarled, then rushed towards him as it screamed its rage in its unnatural voice.

"Die!" It's claws came down where Harry no longer was, a swirling storm of cutting wind etching the stones and kicking dust and blood up from Yharnam's streets. Harry swung his ethereal blade as he flowed around its arms like water around a forgotten mast, cutting deep into the beast's flank, before leaping back to avoid a savage backhand thrown his way as the beast swiveled to follow him.

"Die, _die_!" It came at him again and again; swiping at him in a desperate furor. It's claws came within a hair's breadth of him each time, the storm that lived within it grating on his skin painfully. It smelled of ozone and death, and Harry breathed deep, locking the scent in his mind.

He slashed across the things arm when it overextended itself, arterial spray arcing up and into the sky. It retaliated faster than he expected, slashing across his back and shoulder and sending a bloom of his blood flying. His blood mixed with the raging storms, fed back into the creature, and he watched as the wounds he'd dealt the beast didn't quite _heal_ , but lessened.

The force of the blow nearly unbalanced him, but he managed to duck out of the way of another swipe that came on the heels of the first, rushing under its arms and running his Moonlight across its thigh. His blade bit deep, and its blood washed over him, invigorating him and dulling the pain of his wound.

He darted away, fast as he could to create distance, focusing on the motes of light that danced behind his eyes. When he turned towards the abhorrent thing chasing after him, he reared back, feeling the abyssal energy of his Moonlight building, so that, when he slashed his blade through the air, great crescents of shadowy moonlight leapt forth. The first opened the creature up from one shoulder to the opposite rib, bone peeking through the terrible wound, and the beast reeled. Before the second could land, it snatched up the corpse of a scourge beast from the bloodied street to use as a makeshift shield.

The dead scourge beast was rent in two, and though the lightwave continued on, it was greatly diminished and hardly even scratched the creature. It flung the two halves of it's makeshift shield at him, one after the other. He leapt aside the first, and slashed the second out of the air with a vicious smile.

Clever creature!

He darted towards the abhorrent beast, blood singing and crying in exultation in his veins.

His quarry reared back, the lightning crackling around it intensifying, then thrust its ghastly hands out at him. The strike would not have landed, he was too far away, but the storm leapt from the things hands; a roaring tornado of dust and blood and electricity slamming into him and flinging him away to land painfully on his back.

He rolled to the side the instant he landed, and it wasn't a moment too soon. The creature had leapt high with a terrible cry and come crashing down where he just was hard enough to crack the street and send a cloud of dust up around it. The dust swirled higher and higher, joining with the storm around it, and he saw its eyes glittering balefully in the gloom as it turned towards him.

It came at him again, and Harry recognized how it moved, ducking under its arm and stepping into its reach with the kind of mad aggression Evelyn had always admired. He brought his Moonlight up and thrust it forward, burying it up to the hilt in the things chest; just above it's last rib. Too low to hit the heart, _dammit_!

It screamed in unnatural tones, and before Harry could rip his blade out and retreat, it seized him in its massive hands. One hand dug deep into his stomach, claws curling around his ribs. The other grabbed him 'round the head like a vice. So tight that he thought his skull would crack and cave, but then it shifted its grip and its clawed thumb slid into his right eye.

The pain was _terrible_. It pierced straight through his eye, rupturing it and sending blood and the strange, clear liquid in his eye spurting all over its hand and his face. He could feel its claw clacking against the _bone_.

He screamed inarticulately, seeking those living wisps of light in his mind's eye once again, as he willed his Moonlight to grow _brighter_. Light spilled out of the space where his blade and the abhorrent creature's flesh touched, and the light set its flesh to sizzle and burn. It screamed again, high and terrible, and Harry thrust his Moonlight just the slightest bit deeper into the creature's chest.

An explosion of shadowy Moonlight burst from his sword, blowing the wound he had dealt wide and sending the creature stumbling back. It flung him away, his sword pulling free of it amidst a veritable fountain of blood.

He rolled twice before coming to a stop on his back, half propped up on the mangled corpse of what used to be a scourge beast. Breathing hard from the burning pain in his eye and stomach, Harry pushed himself up to one knee.

His quarry had fallen back as well, clutching the gaping wound in its chest in agony as its lifeblood matted its fur and painted the street at its feet.

With practiced ease, Harry slid his hand into his coat, withdrew a vial of healing blood, and jammed it into his thigh. The wound in his stomach sealed, disappearing as if it had never been there, but the pain in his eye was merely dulled. He jammed another vial into his leg, and the pain vanished, energy shooting through him and helping him rise to his feet, as steadily as if nothing had happened.

He blinked, and the world remained flat.

His eye was gone.

As powerful as the healing properties of the Blood were, there were some things it could not do. Regrowing eyes, it seemed, was one of them.

The abhorrent beast made to come at him, stumbled, fell to its knees, then slumped to the side, gasping in fast, shallow breaths as it glared at him with rapidly dulling eyes. He approached it at a casual pace, his Moonlight held low at his side in one hand, blade still dancing and true.

"You Hunter's are _killers!"_ The abhorrent beast gasped out through bloodied lips."Nothing less! You call _me_ a beast? A _beast!?_ " It coughed raggedly as Harry came to a stop just in front of its collapsed form.

"What would you know?" It demanded weakly. "I didn't ask for this."

Harry considered the dying creature before him for a long moment. Then, he thrust his Moonlight into the street, and stepped forward decisively. His hand flashed forth, burying itself in the things chest up to the elbow, fingers curling around its weakly beating heart.

"Neither did I." He told it before he ripped its heart out of its chest amidst a rapturous shower of blood. It groaned weakly for a moment, then fell limp. The swirling storms came to a sudden end, its fur falling flat without the lightning to hold it aloft. Dead, even as its heart kept beating in his hand.

He clenched his fist, crushing its heart to a pulp, and tossed the mangled remains of its heart onto its corpse.

His eye was still gone. How humiliating. After all the myriad ways he'd been injured and killed in the Nightmare, for him to lose his eye in his first real battle outside of it?

Evelyn would be laughing at him if she could see him now. The shadowy void in his mind agreed, dancing gleefully with the motes of light.

A flash of a thought crossed his mind, and perhaps he would have dismissed it out of hand were he not nigh on the field of the Hunt, awash in fresh blood, high on the adrenaline of a mighty prey slaughtered.

Determined not to let this _creature_ take anything from him.

He reached into his coat and withdrew a small, round thing wrapped in thick brown cloth. He pulled back the corners of the cloth with the utmost care, taking great pains not to accidentally rub the thing it concealed.

There, sat upon the cloth in the palm of his hand, was a single, soft eye. A deathly pale phantasm wriggled and writhed within it, bulging the eye in unsightly ways where it moved. The eye itself was dark, perhaps having been blue at some point, with an irregular, blown out pupil. Deep, deep down within it could be glimpsed a great field of stars; a night sky awash in an eternal meteor shower.

The Blacksky Eye.

He took the eye between his thumb and forefinger as carefully as he could, and pressed it into the empty socket where his right eye used to be. It popped into place with a sticky, wet sound that echoed in his mind. He could feel the phantasm writhing, a multitude of tiny limbs spreading out from the Blacksky Eye and into his skull. It didn't exactly hurt, nor was it _pleasant_ , and Harry shuddered violently as the phantasm wrapped around his optic nerve, lights and colors he'd never seen before flashing across his vision for a moment before it settled; the cosmos itself overlaid upon his vision. Stars glittered in the distance, and there, just out of reach, the infinite field of meteors flared and burned as they fell from the sky.

He blinked, seeing the cosmos and the earth as one and yet also separate; overlapping, laying over each other like the ocean and the sky. Inseparable and yet insoluble. Never mixing, but always, _always_ touching.

It was _beautiful_.

His eyes darted here and there, seeing the world so much more clearly than he thought possible. He looked at the ground, and beneath the bloodsoaked cobblestone street, far and away in the distance, he could see the shadow of the Pthumerian city that was once there, of which only the catacombs remained.

He turned his new gaze heavenwards, and there, hidden behind the Moon, was a great castle on a hill, students going about their day without a care in the world. At the peak of the Astronomy tower stood Marie and the Luna girl, looking off into the distance. Her eyes, exultant lunar eclipses filled to the brim with a gentleness that took his breath away, met his, and she smiled.

He blinked, and the vision was gone.

For a long moment he stood there, in awe of how much larger the world suddenly felt. He'd known, oh how he'd _known_ that was the case for such a long time, but there is such an ocean of difference between knowing and _seeing_.

"Harry, on your six!" Tonks shouted, and he spun on the spot, yanking his Moonlight out of the ground as he went.

The remnants of the horde the abhorrent beast had summoned were rushing towards him. He glared at the beast patient that led the charge, a truly enormous example of its kind, and felt the phantasm in his eye writhe in response. His vision went somehow sideways, overlapping with itself, his eye rotating in the socket, and a _rush_ of energy, similar yet so very different from his sword, flashed through his mind and rocketed out through his eye; a meteor ablaze in a haze of arcane power that slammed into the charging beast right between the eyes. It's head exploded in a shower of gore that splattered the street and its fellows.

Its body promptly collapsed, sliding in the blood that stained the cobblestone for a time before coming to rest.

Harry laughed a manic, delighted laugh, casting his vision over another creature, willing his eye to twist _just so_ , and another meteoric bolt flew straight and true, blasting the thing apart at the seams.

The rest, a paltry handful all that remains, stopped in their tracks, eyeing him with animal fear in their eyes. He took one step towards them, intent on finishing them up close and personal, and they turned on the spot and bolted. Rushing away, back up the stairs into Cathedral Ward, running as if the devil himself were on their heels.

They were wrong. The Kind Hunter was on their tail, and he would grant them the greatest kindness he knew: a swift death.

He darted after them, flying up the stairs almost without touching them, cleaving them in half one by one, laughing all the while, until, in the end, he stood upon the top of the stairs.

Awash in the blood of his foes. Victorious.

Looking down at Oedon Chapel, over the innumerable dead beasts he'd left in his wake, past the corpse of his great prey of the night, he saw the others. They were all standing in the open doorway of Oedon Chapel.

Watching him.

Albus watched him with a strange mix of pride and concern twisting at his features, and the Aurors whose names he hadn't yet learned were looking at him in shock; unable to believe what they'd just witnessed.

Tonks was cheering, pumping her fist in the air in victory. Her eyes were still exact copies of his own. He made his way back to them at a clip, dismissing the motes of light in his mind gratefully and sheathing his Moonlight.

"Fuck! _YEAH!_ That's what I'm talking about!" Tonks clapped him on the back the moment he was in reach. Harry chuckled, returning the favor.

"Not gonna kiss me again, are you?" He grinned cheekily at her as he pulled her back into the chapel. The others followed suit, closing the doors behind them.

"Not complaining, are you?" She asked him seriously, but there was a glimmer of mischief in her eye.

"Perish the thought! I'd just like a warning next time."

"What makes you think there's gonna _be_ a next time, mister?" She poked him in the chest. She was fighting a smile as she glared at him.

"Enough flirting you two." One of the Aurors, the one in charge if Harry had his guess, cut in. "You said you had a plan to get us home and I'd like to hear it."

"Right," Harry sobered. "C'mere." He motioned for them to follow him, and led them to the lamp in the heart of Oedon Chapel. The ground around it rippled, the messengers praying at its base turning to him as he approached.

"The lantern!" Albus exclaimed the moment Harry opened his mouth, the light of epiphany bright in his eye. "We can use them to travel, can't we?"

"That's right. The lantern's act as-" He thought for a moment, looking for the right word. "Maypoles, or lightning rods of a sort. They're places where memories are numerous and strong, acting as anchors, and they allow one to travel across the- the Nightmare planes." A terrible, dawning terror loomed in his mind. A realization growing ever louder and stronger in its surety.

"One appeared in Hogwarts recently." He said quietly, trailing off as he stared at the others without really seeing them.

A lantern appeared in Hogwarts.

A _lantern_ appeared in Hogwarts.

A _lantern_ appeared in _Hogwarts._

A lantern that is only found in the Nightmare planes that he so desperately fled. The very same Nightmare that had swallowed Yharnam long before he awoke there.

Marie's words, that he had tried so desperately to forget, tried so incredibly _hard_ to flat out ignore the implications of, came to him again. _This place will make a lovely home._

The Nightmare wasn't over.

He'd never escaped.

The Nightmare had only grown to swallow the world, with Yharnam at its heart. A gaping wound in the sky. A hole torn in the protective veil between the Cosmos and the rest of reality by Rom's death, slowly leaking the Cosmos itself into what _used_ to be the Waking World.

He was only the first thing to come through that hole. Like the herald of some terrible and unsightly god, he appeared through a keyhole that _he had forged_.

He'd thought they were doing the right thing. They both did. But, killing Rom changed everything, didn't it?

Had Gehrman lied to him? Or had the Old Hunter not known what fate would befall him, believing the words he spoke so prettily as he pulled and picked at the ties binding him to Evelyn, convincing him with such sweet concern to leave her behind and accept his death.

Was it his fault? Had he, in his refusal to let go of his hope for a future with Evelyn, even as he fled her ambitions and the terrible Dream, only damned himself and the world?

"Harry? My boy, are you alright?" Albus shook him slightly, and Harry came back to himself; blinking furiously as he tried to focus through the dreadful despair squeezing his lungs and making it feel like he couldn't breathe.

He hadn't escaped the Nightmare after all. He's still lost in it, same as everyone else now. Same as Evelyn-

Another realization crashed through him like a freight train.

Evelyn! She's still out there! Somewhere, _somewhere_ in the Dream that has taken the world. He can find her! He can find her, and if the worst has come to pass he will drag her out of the Hunter's Nightmare if he has to reorganize the Cosmos itself to do it!

" _My dear, sweet Harry. You will find me in time, but you have work, yet."_ Her voice, _her voice_ that he had thought was simple madness these past few days, sounded in his mind. He shivered as pure, ecstatic bliss bloomed in his heart.

"Harry?" Albus asked again, truly looking concerned now. Harry laughed, starting low but slowly rising until he was bent double over himself as he cackled like a madman.

"Oh, oh Albus, I've just realized something." He babbled.

"What is it? What have you realized?" Harry had never seen him look so worried before.

"That there _is no_ escaping it. No way out, but-" He seized the man by the shoulders, pinning him with his gaze.

"I can get you all back to Hogwarts. And that's _something_ , at least." He murmured, slowly releasing his grip on the Headmaster. He stepped away, looking over them all.

Eight survivors arrayed in front of him. Of an expedition of 29, only ten survived, if the Department of Mysteries wasn't lying about their Unspeakables managing to return. Had they discovered how to use the lamps? Or had they found another way?

Does it matter? These people here, these _fighters_ , these scrappy survivors are his responsibility, not anyone else.

"Kneel at the lantern. Touch it, keeping the image of the Great Hall of Hogwarts in your mind all the while, and let it take you." He explained to the group. Tonks' brow knit together, while the others gave him dubious looks.

"That simple, is it?" She asked him.

"It should be." He shrugged.

"Alright." She mirrored his shrug and stepped up to kneel at the lantern. "Let's give it a crack."

She breathed deep, eyes slipping closed as she focused on the image in her mind, then reached out for the lantern when she had it firmly in place.

Nothing happened.

Harry's brow furrowed. She kept touching the lantern, trying to focus harder in an attempt to make it work, but he knew she'd done it right. So why hadn't it worked?

He looked down, rubbing his chin in thought, and noticed that the pale light of the lamp cast shadows from the messengers, and himself, but not Tonks. Its light passed straight through her as if she wasn't there.

Not acknowledging her. Like how a keyhole only accepts a certain key and she's the wrong shape-

No, that's not _quite_ right. More, like the Fat Lady that guards the Gryffindor common room will only open for those that know the password.

The _password_ …

He kneeled next to her, reaching out to touch the lamp, calling to mind the Great Hall, and felt the lantern reaching out, accepting him, as the dangling, upside down rune etched in the deepest part of his mind flashed.

He jerked his hand away, breaking the connection before he could be washed away.

He took Tonks' hand in his own, and she jerked her eyes open, sending him a questioning look.

"Let me try something." She nodded her consent, and Harry reached for the lantern again, focusing on the Great Hall and imagining them both standing there. He felt the lantern accept him, his Hunter's rune flashing again, and the current rose up to drag him under.

He flowed along the connection between the lamps; a mote of dust on cosmic winds. Swept along by the tide of memory in a journey that felt at once like it took no time at all and was never ending. A moment, stretched on and on unto the end of the universe and then condensed back into a barely there instant.

He blinked, and looked around the Great Hall. It was utterly deserted aside from himself. No students, no teachers, no food on the table. He'd never seen it so empty before.

It felt almost lifeless. Like something out of a bad dream. He snorted as he realized how true it was, now.

Wait-

He looked around again. He was truly alone.

Tonks hadn't come with him.

"I should have known it wouldn't be that easy." He sighed, kneeling at the lantern once more.

An eternity in a moment later he was rising to his feet in Oedon Chapel, everyone there looking at him with wide eyes.

"That didn't work." He crossed his arms, scowling at the lantern. "We're going to have to do this the hard way."

* * *

Tonks wasn't sure she wanted to know what _the hard way_ was to a man capable of what Harry was. Circe's tits! She'd watched him slaughter a horde of lycans and the same creatures that had nearly killed her, then go toe to toe with that lightning infused monstrosity with the most beautiful weapon she had ever had the pleasure of witnessing in her _life, laughing_ all the while.

Sure, he took a few hits. Lost an eye. But he recovered, took the beast down, and finished off the horde and came out bloody but alive.

"What's the hard way?" Scrimgeour barked, patience running thin. Like the rest of them, he's anxious to get home. To get _away_ from this horrid place.

Harry eyed him for a moment, something strange glimmering in the depths of his new, writhing eye. Tonks wondered how it felt, to have something like that in your head. Moving around without your say so. Could he actually _see_ out of it?

Why else would he have shoved it in there? Aside from the whole ' _it can shoot bolts of magic the likes of which she'd never seen before'_ thing.

"There is a rune," Harry started, voice low and deadly serious. Just like when he was explaining the curse of the Blood to her.

"A dangling, upside down rune. The mark of a Hunter, like me. It is the key, the _password_ needed to access the lanterns."

"So what do we do? Tattoo it on our arses?" She snarked in an attempt to lighten the mood. Life and death situation or not, there's no need to be so bloody morbid about it.

It worked. A few of her fellows snorted, and she watched him fight and lose the battle against an amused smirk, but it was wiped away as quickly as it came.

"Not quite. The rune must be inscribed upon your mind. For that, we need two things: a specially made tool for inscribing the rune, which I have, and a specially anointed ritual altar. I only know of one such altar in all of Yharnam. The Old Hunter's Workshop, at the base of Cathedral Ward."

"What the hell do you mean, 'inscribed in our _mind?_ '" She blurted out, unable to wrap her head around the idea.

"It's difficult to explain." He said apologetically. "Trust me, it'll work. Won't even hurt."

"Well I wasn't worried about _that_ until you mentioned it!" She poked him in the chest, hard. He just barked out a laugh and muttered a totally insincere apology.

"Follow me. Stay close, stay alert. Albus?" Albus bloody Dumbledore, who she still couldn't believe was young again - _somehow_ \- snapped to attention, ready to receive orders. Tonks had seen him do it before, but it hadn't really registered at the time. What kind of alternate dimension had she stepped into where _Dumbledore_ took orders from Harry Potter?

It's like something out of one of those mind-numbingly shit children's books they pumped out all about the adventures of the Boy-Who-Lived. Vapid nonsense, the lot of it. She hadn't even liked them as a squeaker herself.

"Make sure no one gets left behind and nothing follows us. I'll lead the way. Let's go."

He led them to the sealed set of doors off to the side of the central dais of the chapel, throwing them open and moving at a brisk clip down the short hall. They followed, Tonks herself in the front, Shack to her right, and everyone else in loose formation behind.

The hall ended in a sharp corner, around which was a round platform set in the floor with a huge, tarnished copper lever in the floor before it.

"Don't step on the center of the platform until we're all on it." Harry told them, moving to the farthest point of the platform. The center of the platform was slightly raised from the rest, and Tonks figured it was an activation switch of some sort. The rest piled on, having to squeeze in rather tight to manage it with all ten of them. She ended up right behind him, pressed against his shoulder.

Harry stepped on the center switch, gears and pulleys could be heard grinding against each other in the walls, and the platform rocketed upwards at a surprising pace.

"How do you know all this stuff, Harry?" She asked him. He was facing away from the others, nose nearly getting sheared off by the uneven walls as they moved, he was standing so close to the edge.

He turned his head, looking at her over his shoulder with his new eye. This close to him she could see how the eye was such a deep midnight blue that it could easily be mistaken for black, but the darkness of the irregularly shaped, quivering pupil was so _deep_ and unfathomable that you could never mistake the iris for being black. It was like looking into the void. She swore she could see something glittering in the depths of that blackness, shooting across it like a meteor shower. Something writhed around the edges of it, the ends of tentacle-like limbs occasionally roving over the iris and pupil.

"I spent Halloween night in Yharnam. Time fuckery might have been involved, so it was a lot more than one night for me. It's a long story." He shrugged carelessly.

"I'd like to hear it some time. We can get drinks at Madam Rosmerta's on one of your Hogsmeade weekends, yeah?" She bumped him with her shoulder, and he smiled, but it was patently fake. Her heart sank, just a little. He opened his mouth, to reject the idea no doubt, then shut it again hard enough she heard his teeth clack against each other. He looked thoughtful for a moment, still looking in her direction but not _at_ her. Then his smile changed, shifting to a rather shy but entirely genuine one as he focused on her again.

"I'd like that, I think. Send me an owl, we'll set up a date."

"Will do!" She smirked, pleased with herself.

"Did you just score a date with Harry Potter while he was in the middle of saving our sorry asses?" Dawson whispered to her, awestruck, but it hadn't been quiet enough because Harry snickered.

He didn't deny it.

"I mighta done, what's it to ya?"

"Might be a bit miffed that you beat me to the punch is all." He clapped her on the back, and she chuckled.

The elevator came to a rather jarring stop, and Tonks noticed that she and Harry were the only ones not to stumble. Odd. Had the Blood he'd given her fixed her coordination issues?

Through a short, narrow corridor she could see a rather large, square room with walls that were more veranda than wall. The ceiling was held up by four thick, intricately carved pillars. She thought the floor might have some sort of mosaic tile or base relief, but she couldn't tell through the blood and multitude of bodies littering the floor. The bodies were all human, or _humanoid,_ wearing what used to be pristine white long coats and pants, with matching wide brimmed hats. Their faces were all the same: shockingly white -not pale, but _white_ \- empty things utterly devoid of life or thought.

They may have been dead, but Tonks got the impression they hadn't looked much more lively in life.

At the very center of the room, crouched down to gather _something_ from one of the bodies, was a person. They were wearing a rather plain, dark long coat, but the cape they had on over top of it was anything but plain. It was long, split up the center so it vaguely resembled wings, and was made entirely of raven feathers. They were wearing intricate armor under their coat, with a closed helmet hiding their face. The armor might have once gleamed, but now it was tarnished with blood, the same as the rest of them. They looked like a bloodied crow, picking over the carrion.

They turned their helmeted head towards the elevator as it came to a stop, and rose sinuously to their feet. Tonks had her wand pointed, a curse on the tip of her tongue.

" _You!"_ Harry hissed malevolently, drawing his sword and stalking towards the stranger.

"Me." They said simply, their voice clearly masculine. A man then.

"You two know each other?" Tonks asked, already sure of the answer. They ignored her.

"Queen Annalise has missed you at court in recent years, Kind Hunter. You and your partner." The stranger tutted, unconcerned with the threat of violence in every step Harry took in his direction.

"You should have stayed dead." Harry growled.

"Because Eileen bit off more than she could chew? I think not. Come now, we need not fight again."

"You killed my friend." Harry ran his hand over his blade, and it came alive with pale Moonlight once more.

"You don't get to walk away." With that, Harry rushed forward, sword held aloft as he charged the bloody crow.

They raised their hand, holding what looked like a piece of bone. What they were going to do with it, Tonks didn't know, and she wasn't about to find out. A cutting curse lept from her wand and impacted the crow's wrist, sending their hand spinning away through the air amidst a fountain of blood. They didn't so much as flinch at the pain, drawing a blade of what looked like pure blood from a sheath at their waist just in time to parry Harry's attempt to run them through the heart.

They spun away from each other, and a hail of spells flew from the group at the bloody crow. He dashed forward, towards Harry, just managing to dodge the barrage of deadly lights that would have probably turned him into an unrecognizable pile of meat and feathers.

He carried the momentum of his dodge into a fast strike with his sword, aimed for Harry's head, but Harry saw the blow coming and ducked under it. The crow kept running, heading through a side door, Harry hot on his heels.

Tonks and the rest followed, and she cursed when she saw how the terrain had turned against them.

The door let out onto a narrow bridge connecting the building they were in to a high, multileveled tower. With Harry between them and the crow, there was no way they could risk trying to help. It'd be too easy to hit Harry by mistake.

"Get him, Harry." She muttered, wand raised and ready to take advantage of any openings she saw.

The crow turned to face him on the bridge, and Harry slung a wide arc of shadowy light at him. With nowhere else to go, the crow took the hit, darting forward to close the gap even as blood gushed from the wide slash across his chest.

She watched as the two came together, exchanging and parrying blows in equal measure. Their movements were so fast that they were almost a blur, their weapons moving as extensions of them, wielded with preternatural ease. When their blades touched they fizzled and hissed, the blood of the crows weapon smoking and boiling away against Harry's ethereal blade.

Sometimes, one or the other would take a hit they could have otherwise dodged in an attempt to strike a mortal blow of their own, but always did the other manage to retreat, or parry, or dodge. Back and forth it went, blood raining down on the bridge and painting it crimson.

Then, Harry made a mistake. He made a great lunge with his blade, energy bursting out of it in a great blast that left it nothing but steel once more. The crow sidestepped the attack, pouncing forward with a thrust of his own. A blade of flowing blood burst out of Harry's back, and Tonks screamed her denial.

"You've grown overconfident, Kind Hunter." The smug bastard drawled, and it was only that he was mostly behind Harry that kept Tonks from spitting a killing curse at him.

Harry seized him by the throat, holding him in place. In the next instant, a swirling vortex of stars and galaxies formed around Harry's head, and a bolt of cosmic energy leapt from his eye, liquifying the crow's head from the jaw up. The rippling blade of blood that he'd been run through with hissed and shrank, and then it was nothing more than an elegant katana.

Harry threw the crow's headless corpse away from him to land in an unceremonious pile a few feet away, then ripped the sword from his chest and tossed that away as well.

"I was the overconfident one, was I?" He snarked the dead man as he jammed a syringe into his leg.

"I thought that simple impalement was enough to kill a Hunter, was I?" He snorted derisively. "Arrogant bastard."

"You alright, mate?" Tonks asked, stepping out onto the bridge herself. He turned to face her, nodding his head.

"I'm fine. That was some quick thinking on your part, taking his hand off when you did. Appreciate it. He'd have been a right nightmare otherwise. Probably wouldn't have taken my bait if he weren't that slight bit desperate." Bait? What _bait_?

"Did you bait him into _impaling you?_ " He smirked viciously. Well. God damn. " _Why?_ "

"So the fucker would sit still long enough for me to take his head off. He'd have dodged it, otherwise." Bloody buggering shite, that's a risky play! She rather likes it.

"What's that bone he had even do?" She wondered.

"Grants the art of Quickening. A forgotten technique that used to be commonplace. Now it's only remembered by the bones of the dead." He shook his head mournfully. "C'mon you lot. Not much farther now." He called out to the rest before turning and heading across the bridge.

"Hope you don't have any troubles with heights." He smirked at her over his shoulder.

* * *

"You sure this is going to work?" Tonks asked dubiously as she kneeled before the ritual altar.

"I'm sure. Now, lay your forehead against the stone, and repeat the prayer as I say it." She took a deep breath, steadying herself, and did as he said. The stone was cold against her skin.

"Oh Flora, of the Moon, of the Dream," he intoned deliberately as he pressed the cold iron brand against the base of her skull. She dutifully repeated the words.

"Take this one as your own. Grant them strength, and surety, and purpose." She felt the brand grow hot against her skin. The shape of it came to life in her mind's eye. Dangling and faint.

"Oh Flora, of the Hunt, bless this one with your mark, raise them up into the ranks of your Hunters." As she repeated the words, the brand turned searing, but the heat was not on her skin. No, it was within her. Burning the mark of the Hunter into her mind irrevocably. It felt _almost_ like a legilimency probe in her mind, but so much _more_ and so much _less_ at the same time. She could see it now, when she closed her eyes it was right there, and its meaning rushed into her, and through her, and she knew what it meant to be a Hunter.

_Venator Sanguinis Astris._

Harry pulled the brand away, and she slumped to the side to stare up at the ceiling with wide eyes.

"Hey," Harry kneeled in front of her. "You alright?"

"That was a lot weirder than I expected it would be." She said in a perfect monotone. Harry chuckled and held his hand out to help her onto her feet. His laugh unwound some of the shock from her system, and she smiled faintly at him. She took his hand and let him pull her onto her feet.

"You get used to it eventually. Care to try the lantern again?" He gestured at the rather conveniently placed lantern in the center of the Old Workshop, around which the others were arrayed, awaiting their turn at the altar.

"You bet your sweet arse I am! I'm _beyond_ ready to get out of here."

"Well get on with it then!" He laughed.

She knelt before the lantern, foraging around in her occlumency barriers to make sure the image she summoned was the newest and sharpest image she could manage. She reinforced the image again and again, planting it like a tree in the forefront of her mind.

"You're putting more effort into it than you need to." Harry pointed out, a teasing grin stretching his lips. She raised an eyebrow in his direction.

"And how do you know how much effort I'm putting into it, hm?"

"I-" His teasing smile slipped away, and he was so confused so suddenly that it threw Tonks for a loop.

"I don't know." He muttered absently, a far away look in his eyes.

"Right," she drawled uncertainly, then shook herself and focused on the task at hand.

Getting the everloving _fuck_ out of this place. Right. The image was still locked in place, thank Merlin for occlumency, so she reached out to the lamp.

The difference was immediately apparent. Where before precisely _nothing_ had happened, this time she felt _something_ reach out to her, a magic indefinable, pulling her down down _down_ into an irresistible current. She shut her eyes, and the moment dragged on into years and decades before snapping back into a single instant.

When she opened her eyes, she was in the Great Hall of Hogwarts, kneeling before an identical lantern to the ones she'd seen in Yharnam, right down to the little creatures praying at its base. There was a cacophony of voices and the sound of silverware on plates on the air. A classic Hogwarts evening feast.

By Merlin and Morgana, she had never heard such a comforting sound in all her _life!_

The lamp was behind the staff table, somewhat out of sight of the students, so she might not have been spotted yet by the prepubescent masses. All's the better. She's splattered with half dried blood, shirtless but for the bandage wrap around her chest and her half ruined Auror coat, and she knows she's in no mood to deal with that kind of attention.

Seven years of the Hogwarts rumor mill was quite enough, thank you very much. She dropped a weak notice-me-not on herself.

"Miss Tonks!?" Professor McGonogall exclaimed, climbing up out of her seat at the head table to rush to her side. Apparently the spell had been a little _too_ weak.

"Professor!" She shot back, straightening unconsciously.

"What are you doing here? _How_ did you get here? My word!" The Professor's eyes widened dramatically as she got a good look at the state she was in. "What happened to you?"

Tonks laughed and it was a manic, desperate thing. The laugh of someone who has just escaped certain death and _knows_ it. All relief and adrenaline and the irrepressible joy of being _alive._

"A lot. _A lot_ happened, Professor. I'm sure it'll make the Prophet, even."

The bells attached to the lantern jerked of their own accord, sending a light and airy chime floating through the Great Hall. It was quiet enough that Tonks was sure it should have been drowned out by the noise of the feast, but at the same time it echoed; reverberating in her head in soothing waves.

The strange creatures arrayed around the lantern reached into the strangely rippling floor, and between them rose the familiar bald head of her partner. She should have known Shack would be the next to take the plunge. He's always had her back, for as long as she's known him.

"Shack!" She rushed to help him up.

"Tonks." He gripped her upper arm as he rose unsteadily to his feet, shaking his head as if to banish cobwebs. "How are _you_ of all people on your feet as if nothing happened? I can't- everything's spinning."

"Dunno, mate. You need to sit down?" He nodded his head, and she led him to the nearest chair, turning it around so he wouldn't be sat facing the students, and lowered him into it.

"Oh my!" Flitwick squeaked from his own seat further down the table. "Miss Tonks, Mister Shacklebot, what's happening?" The rest of the staff turned to look at them.

"Not sure, can you get Madame Pomfrey? Shack doesn't look so good." His eyes were glazed over, sweat beading across his face and yet he felt deathly cold to the touch. Something must've gone wrong. She'd gotten through the lantern and come out the other side perfectly fine, why was he in such a sorry state?

"Yes, of course!" The diminutive professor snapped off a quick messenger patronus, then hopped down off his chair to approach the pair.

"If you would allow me, I'm well versed in basic first aid, I can take a look at him?" He asked them.

"Whaddya think, Shack?" His head lolled, burying his chin in his chest. "Shack!?" He groaned in response, his grip on her arm tightening as his expression tightened in pain.

"Check him out, Flit, something ain't right." She told him, barely keeping herself from shouting in her panic. She can't lose her partner, not now. Not after they've finally gotten out of that nightmare city.

Flitwick jumped into a series of familiar triage diagnostic charms, not even as numerous and varied as the bog standard set drilled into the heads of every Auror recruit in their first few weeks. Shite, fecking _civilians_. She'd be doing a better job of it than him right now!

The lantern bell rang again, and Tonks tore her eyes away from her partner long enough to see Mcdonnel rising up out of the floor into a kneeling position, the same as Shack had. He wavered on the spot, and Tonks only just managed to dart out and catch him before he collapsed into a groaning pile.

"Shite, Tonks? Why're there so blasted _many_ of you?"

"How many of me you seeing?" She asked as she led him to a chair of his own, right next to Shack. He blinked at her, pale as a sheet, sweating and cold just like Shack.

"Like, seven? It's hard to keep track of 'em all, they keep moving. Oh Merlin, I think I'm gonna be sick." He bent over himself, emptying the meager contents of his stomach onto the floor and his own feet. Tonks sidestepped the spew, rubbing his back and shoulders as worry gnawed at her insides.

Was everyone going to come out the other side sick? What the fuck is _happening_ to them?

"McGonogall," she snapped her gaze onto the Deputy Headmistress. She was standing over Shack, clearly concerned but unsure of how to help. At her call, she turned to face the battered Auror.

"Clear the Great Hall. This is an official DMLE matter, and we don't need that many prying eyes. 'Specially not kids." She ordered in her clearest, most official sounding voice. It came out a lot stronger than she expected it would, and McGonogall snapped to attention with a perfunct:

"Of course." Then she was marching away, voice booming over the Great Hall, ordering the children to return to their common rooms at once. They groaned and complained, apparently dinner had only just started, but Tonks didn't give a toss. They can have the elves bring them food in their common rooms. The little squirts will be fine.

It's her teammates that she's worried about.

The bell chimed again, and Tonks moved once again to help an ailing Auror, Proudfoot this time, to their feet and into a chair. He was a big, burly bloke, and Tonks was surprised by how easily she carried his weight. His eyes were bloodshot and clouded, and he blinked repeatedly as she knelt in front of him.

"Proudfoot, talk to me man." She insisted when his silence stretched too long for her to bear. He blinked again, eyes moving over her but not seeing her.

"Tonks? That you? I can't see anything, where are we? Why is it so bleedin' _dark?_ " She swallowed convulsively, trying to choke down the lump in her throat.

"We're in Hogwarts, we're safe. You've gone blind, but Pomfrey is on her way and she'll fix you right up in a jiffy." She forced the words out despite not believing them herself. Merlin, Pomfrey had _better_ be able to help them. Proudfoot nodded, leaning back in his chair. His hands were shaking, and Tonks swore she could see the veins around his eyes turning _black._

Just what is _taking_ that damn woman so long!?

The lantern rang out once more, and Tonks turned to it with dread squeezing her heart like a vice.

Cerric this time, and he rose out of the ground _screaming_. There were long, deep cuts running down his left arm and over his shoulder where he got caught by _something_ , probably the same things that got her on the bridge, but they'd been mostly healed and well bandaged last she saw. Now, they must have torn open somehow because he'd bled through his bandages something _awful!_

She rushed to his side, pulling him away from the lantern and laying him on his back some feet away. He was babbling in Gaelic, pale as a ghost, gripping at his injured arm as if he was trying to hold it together. She launched into a diagnostic stream of her own, and while some of the spells came back with results she didn't know what to make of, the important bit was that he was losing a lot of blood _very_ fast. Faster than his wounds would suggest.

Internal bleeding, _shite._ She hasn't got the control necessary for that kind of delicate work.

"Cerric, Cerric? You with me, mate?" He didn't react, babbling turning to murmuring, eyes glazed and unseeing. Shite, shite shite shite!

"WHERE THE _FUCK_ IS POMFREY!?" She roared, looking up and finally taking note of the crowd of teachers present. Everyone but Mad-Eye was there, standing in a group by the head table, being utterly useless, _feckless_ idiots. For an instant, she _hated_ them. To stand there, frozen bystanders, thinking to themselves that, 'oh, _someone else_ will solve the problem right in front of my face. There's no need for me to get involved.'

"Snape, you've got some medical training, haven't you?" She barked. The man scowled, arms crossed petulantly. Oh sure, he probably thought he looked intimidating, glaring down his stupidly long nose at her, but Tonks had probably never seen anything less intimidating in her life.

"I have some, yes." He intoned flatly, clearly bored.

"Then why the _fuck_ aren't you helping?" She glared at him with such sulfurous rage that she was surprised he didn't immolate on the spot. If he had the gall to keep standing there, passively watching as men better than he will ever be fall ill, bleed out and _die,_ she won't even need her wand to kill him.

Her bare hands will do just fine.

The man snorted, clearly annoyed with being called out, and Tonks was a microsecond away from killing him on the spot, when he finally drew his wand and stepped forward to help.

Bastard should've been helping from the word go.

"He's bleeding internally, is there anything you can do for that?" She asked him as she did her best to get his surface wounds to close, or at least stop bleeding out all over the floor. Nothing worked.

Frustrated, she tore his ruined bandages off so she could look at his wounds properly. They were a lot worse than she expected; wide and deep, and growing steadily wider by the second, like a doll being pulled apart at the seams.

"It's beyond my ability to fix," he reported after swishing his wand in a diagnostic of his own. He retrieved a bottle from his voluminous robes and tilted it into Cerric's mouth.

"Blood replenisher is the best I can do for him at the moment." All the potion accomplished was making his wounds spurt blood like a fountain all over her lower body for a moment, before resuming their steady flow.

"Make way! Make way! What's happening here?" Pomfrey's voice preceded her as she _finally_ cut through the throng of professors and made a beeline straight for them.

"That's enough Severus, back away now, let me handle this." She frowned at the man, and he retreated back to the rest of the useless idiots watching them.

"He's bleeding internally, his wounds are getting steadily worse, and he's non-responsive." Tonks reported, as quickly and clearly as she could manage. The matron's wand was already weaving a veritable tapestry of diagnostics, monitoring charms, and the occasional healing spell she didn't recognize. Her frown only intensified as she looked the results over.

"We need to get him to the Hospital Wing." She flicked her wand and Cerric rose up off the ground to hover near her shoulder.

"What about the others?" The lantern chimed again, and she looked between it and the matron frantically.

"Others?" Pomfrey questioned, looking around and realizing how many patients she'd suddenly been handed. "You lot!" She barked at the onlookers.

"Help the others to the Hospital Wing, quick as you can." They all jumped into action, Hagrid physically picking Shack up in his arms while the others used levitation charms.

Tonks rushed to the lantern just in time to catch Bently as he collapsed, unconscious and pale, but otherwise fine looking.

"Someone take Bently, and be ready! We've got four more coming through after him!"

* * *

Harry opened his eyes after the interminable moment spent traveling through the lantern, and Tonks was there, wrapping her arm around him and helping him to his feet.

"Er, Tonks? Much as I appreciate the thought, I don't need … help." He trailed off as he took in her harried appearance, the fresh blood staining her hands and lower body, and the sticky puddle of blood not even ten feet from the lantern. Albus, the last one he branded and sent through the lantern, was being levitated away by a frightened Professor Vector. The Great Hall was otherwise empty.

"What the hell _happened?_ " Her grip on him shifted, going from supportive to threatening in an instant.

"Why don't you tell me, huh?" She snarled into his face. "We went through with _your_ plan, and the others all came out fucking _dying!_ "

"What?" He gasped out. "No, no that shouldn't be! They should be fine! Evelyn and I used the lanterns all the time and we never came out any worse for wear."

Her grip on him tightened for a moment, and he really thought she might try to hurt him, and he was going to let her, but then she slumped, her rage gone in an instant. Her hands slid off of him to wrap around herself.

"It's the Blood, isn't it?" She looked away, towards the doors to the Great Hall. "That's why you and I were the only ones to come through in one piece. Because we've got the Blood in us."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm rather happy with how this chapter came out! Let me know what you thought down below!

**Author's Note:**

> Crossposting to AO3 because someone asked, and hey! I like this site a lot more than that other one anyway :p


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